Steele Dying To Get It Right
by RSteele82
Summary: (Canon)An experimental revamping of 'The Steele That Wouldn't Die.' The relationship of Steele and Laura faces its biggest challenge to date: a hasty marriage to keep Steele from being deported; Laura's flirtations with another man; an archaeologist with an agenda of his own; and Steele framed for the murder of Keyes. How does our intrepid duo make it through, to fight another day?
1. Chapter 1

A thought recently occurred to me.

Generally, the fans of Remington Steele can agree passionately on one matter: That Season 5 was a disaster that never should have been. Our two favorite characters not portrayed true to their history in order to accommodate a whirlwind of on location filming; episodes virtually devoid of Laura/Remington interaction/romance; the introduction of a schmarmy new character on NBC's insistence; and, of course, two writers with little knowledge of the characters attempting to throw together scripts for the recently un-cancelled show. The end result is what we all know it to be: a disappointing and lackluster final farewell for 'Remington Steele', inane plots, and serious character assassination

While I have read only a couple of pieces of fan fiction to date - not wishing to color my own writings by the thoughts of another - just skimming boards such as these show that most authors who weave post-series tales opt to toss out Season 5 as though it never existed. Other summaries I've seen mention of an "alternate universe" and I imagine there are others that have done as I have: picked up after the conclusion of Season 5 and have tried to rectify the past by creating a present in which the travesties of the past were surmounted.

Then I began thinking...what if...

What if...

What if...

What if instead of ignoring Season 5, one instead embraced what good could be found in it, and understood there was much that went on behind the scenes which we never were given the opportunity to see? What if, suddenly, Laura's alternating between flirting with Remington and with the creepy-stalker Roselli, made sense? What if her vexing, priggish - let's face it, very un-Laura bitchy - attitude could be understood by those things that happened that we did not see or were not placed in their proper perspective? What if Remington stopped blithely ignoring Laura's flirtations with Roselli and addressed them, both to himself and her? What if we understood why he was so often buddy-buddy with the sleezy, stalking, wanna-be wife stealer Roselli? What if, at long last, Remington and Laura interacted regularly, trying to work through the problems that their hasty marriage created.

Would we, then, hate Season 5 as much as we did/do?

I don't think we would.

I think we might actually love it.

Thus, this experiment was born.

Drop me a line, let me know what you think. I will only continue to write it, so long as it provides to others, like me, what I hope it will.

RSteele82


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks, as always, to my editor-in-chief. Her insight and suggestions on these pieces are, as always, invaluable, but perhaps even more so when one is attempting a project such as this.

For the best experience when reading my stories, you will want to read them in order as the continuity of events is moved from one story to the next. The following is the order of current stories:

Steele Torn & Trying to Holt On  
Cannes Steele be Trusted (co-written with the super-talented SuzySteele)  
Steele Mending  
Steele Working out the Details  
Steele Settling In  
Steele Finding Comfort  
Steele Holting on To Christmas  
Steele Holting on To The Holiday  
Holting On To The Moments  
Steele Cold Relief  
Steele Dying to Get It Right

As always, I do not own the characters, I make no profit, I write these stories only for pure pleasure.

* * *

(Chapter 1)

"There we go." Steele commented as he carried a bedraggled Laura over the threshold of his apartment shortly after their spontaneous nuptials. Laura, her clothes muddied, pantyhose ripped, and hair both muddy and in disarray, swung her feet half-heartedly as he carried her.

"How romantic." A thrilled Mildred enthused, watching the display. Despite the fact that she knew their marriage was not legitimate, she had seized onto it as though it were.

"Yes." Steele acknowledged Mildred's comment, as he sat Laura down on her feet in the living room.

"I'll see what I can rustle up in the kitchen," Mildred volunteered.

"What a lovely apartment this is, Mr. Steele," Estelle Becker, INS agent, complimented as she followed the couple and Juan's ensemble of workers into the apartment. "Is this where the two of you are planning to live?"

"Yes-" Steele confirmed.

"No-" Laura replied at the same time. She and Steele glanced at one another, tried again.

"No-" Steele replied.

"Yes-" Laura contradicted. Laura looked away, clearly frustrated that they were not on the same page, while Steele hustled to come up with an explanation for Estelle.

"Actually yes and no. We're going to live here but we're going to redo the entire place. Yeah…" he smoothly covered as he wrapped an arm around Laura's shoulder. "Now that Laura's the little woman…" Steele rubbed Laura's arm, placing a kissing on the side of her head at the same time. "Mmmm. Yeah, she's got definite ideas about the décor." He continued to rub Laura's arm briskly while smiling widely at Estelle.

"I'm very partial to Scotch plaid," Estelle offered.

Steele tried not to cringe, although clearly appalled by the very idea while Laura sent Estelle a dumbfounded look, as Steele continued to rub her arm.

"That's a wonderful suggestion. Yes, yes. Add a bit of color to these drab old bachelor digs, eh?" Laura rolled her eyes at his prevarication. "What do you think, my love?" Steele smacked Laura's arm heartily, then turned to look down at her, his gaze empathetic, trying to get her to engage, although he was well-aware that she was trying to digest how the day had turned out as it had.

"I think I'll freshen up a bit." Laura said brightly, swiping at her mud laden, tousled hair. Steele nodded his agreement, accepting that she needed time to regroup before engaging with the INS worker and perpetuating the farce of their marriage.

"Hmmm. Mmmm. Good idea." He could only watch as Laura walked briskly towards the bedroom, leaving him alone with Juan and Estelle.

Steele slowly backed towards the bedroom door, determined to go see Laura, hoping to calm her. Her nerves were frayed, he well knew, and that she was simmering behind the bedroom door, currently, only made matters more difficult. He needed her to focus, to engage in the con they were currently perpetuating. The larger matter, the matter of them, would have to wait until he could the apartment of their guests. Patting Juan on the shoulder, who had serenaded him all the way to the bedroom door, Steele cautiously opened the door to the bedroom and entered. He found Laura, arms crossed, staring at the mirrored closet doors. Shutting the door nervously, he exhaled deeply then leaned against the wall before speaking.

"Thinking about the Scotch plaid?" His attempt at levity fell flat. Laura rounded on him angrily.

"Don't you ever call me the 'little woman' again." He shrugged, hoping to defuse the situation, realizing immediately he had done exactly the opposite in his action. Laura was clearly on the edge of exploding.

"Merely a figure of speech, Laura."

"I am not your little woman. I'm not anybody's little woman!" Steele's own frustration with the day, the situation, rose to the surface at her words.

"If we're going to look married, we have to act married." He pointed out this fact vehemently, although much like those first days in LA when he had no idea what a 'private dick' really did, he had no earthly idea how to realistically portray a married couple, relying instead on age-gone-by nicknames and attitudes show in his favored film noire features.

"If that means making goo-goo sounds and mooning over Scotch plaid every time someone's around, let's forget about it."

Recognizing the downward turn of the conversation, he took a moment, then approached her with hands outheld. He knew the day had been anything but easy on her, and she was living on the edge of her emotions because of it.

"Laura…Laura…look…look. You're tired." He stood in front of her, looking her over, while she in turn stood before him, hands on her hips, mutinous. "You're… You're … and you're absolutely… I mean you're filthy, and um," he leaned over to smell her, "You smell like a crab salad." Laura glared at his assessment. "Take a bath in there. You'll feel much better. Just don't use my razor on your legs. It nicks the blades." He cringed as he watched the hurt flash through her eyes, her chin raise in response to his attempt at a joke. She turned on her heel, walking towards the bedroom door.

"Good idea." The tone of her voice was anything but cooperative. It was, in fact, most definitely defiant.

"You're going the wrong way."

"I'm going home, to take a bath in my tub, to nick my razors." Turning the knob of the door, she found it being shoved closed by Steele, who had rushed across the room towards her the moment her intent registered. Anchoring a hand against the wall, he leaned into her, effectively trapping her between the wall and himself. He wondered for a moment what was wrong with him, pricking her when she was clearly at her breaking point. He refocused, determined to make peace.

"Plenty of time for that just as soon as we convince our immigration lady out there that we're sincerely and irrevocably married." Laura threw her hands up, looked at the ceiling, clearly upset.

"Why did I ever agree to this?"

"Because you don't want to see me deported." They were the first sincere words he had uttered since he'd walked into the room. Whether it appeared so or not, he was as off-balance at finding himself suddenly married to Laura as she was to find herself a likewise situation to him. Granted, being married to Laura far outshone the idea of finding himself in the same state with Clarissa, but he was not so foolish as to not realize that the sudden turn of the events would inevitably place challenges on the relationship they had been so carefully nurturing the past year.

Laura averted her eyes, pretended to reconsider her stance on him being deported, giving back just a little for his digs earlier. He almost instantly sombered at her look, beginning to truly worry that she had changed her feelings about wanting to keep him in LA - with her.

"You don't want to see me deported do you?" He asked the question worriedly, searching her face for any sign, whatsoever, that she still wanted him there, by her side.

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking." She answered flippantly, taking another dig at him, watching as his concern began to escalate towards panic.

"Laura, if you remember, I didn't want to get you involved in this charade. You volunteered." He reminded her desperately.

"I know." She shook her head in frustration, then turned to walk over to the bed, sit on it. "That was always my problem, even as a child. I had my hand up for every thankless task, every dirty job. Eager little Laura, always first in line to please." Steele, hands in his pockets, had walked slowly over towards the bed to sit at the end of it while she spoke, for the first time really understanding the magnitude of what she was feeling.

"Look, I know it's not going to be easy, or particularly enjoyable," he began, clearly frustrated that she was as upset as she clearly was about their marriage. "However, somehow we'll get through it. After all, we carried off the myth of Remington Steele's existence for all these years."

"So a simple thing like a bogus marriage should be a piece of cake." Laura snapped her fingers, smiling for the first time since they arrived at the apartment.

"Look at the bright side, after a couple of years we can get a divorce." He joked, trying once more to lighten the mood. A look of hurt flashed across his face, as Laura greeted this information with enthusiasm.

"Now you're talking."

"In case I haven't said it before…" he told her sincerely, a sad glint in his eyes "…Thank you." Laura looked at him, nodded her head sharply in reply while their eyes held. She hadn't meant to hurt him with her response and regretted it.

"Okay," she smacked her hands together and rose from the bed to walk towards the door. "Let's go out and talk Scotch plaid."

"Mmmm, mmmm" he murmured in assent, looking thrilled that she had finally decided to get into the spirit of their con.

"But if anybody gives me a silver platter, I'm going to cream them."

"That's my little woman…" he threw up his hands in apology, still smiling, when she shot daggers at him with her eyes, "trouper. Hmmm? Remember, hap-hap-happy." He pasted a big smile on his face, Laura mimicking him comically in response before they opened the door to return to the living room...only to be greeted by a hail of rice thrown at them by their guests, neither of them particularly amused at the gesture.

"Do we have anymore beer?" Mildred asked. "We're running dangerously low."

"Uh, no, I'm sorry," Steele answered her, then seized on the opportunity to get rid of their unwanted guests. "Hey Juan, do you know 'The Party's Over?"

"Que?"

"Don't worry I'll send you the sheet music." He told the man in a droll voice, then gathered Juan and the other workers, herding them towards the front door. "Guys, here's the door right over here. Okay, well it's been really lovely."

Juan was baffled by why they were being shown the door. In response, Steele made kissing motions with his face and hands.

"Ah!"

"Yeah, there you go." Steele swung open the door, then froze when he was greeted by Keyes standing in the hallway holding a cactus.

"A wedding present for you." Keyes mocked, shoving the cactus at Steele.

"Oh, you shouldn't have." Steele handed the cactus off to Laura, who stood glaring at the unwelcome intruder that had set this day in motion.

"Every time we look at it, we'll think of you." She told Keyes snidely.

"I'd invite you in Keyes, but I just had the carpet cleaned." Steele told the other man.

"You're still cracking jokes, huh, Steele? Well, let me tell you something… I'm in the last laugh business, and I'm going have it on all of you." Keyes bragged, then gloated to see he'd piqued Steele's temper with his comment. "This farce you call a marriage is gonna cost you five years in the federal pen" he pointed his cigar at Steele "and your investigator's license" the cigar now pointed to Laura "and your job" he finished off by pointing at Estelle. "So just keep listening, pretty boy, because that's me you're gonna hear laughing when you're on your way to Leavenworth."

On that note, Keyes turned and departed, while Mildred shoved the cactus at Juan and ushered he and his friends towards the door.

"It's a party favor, now vamoose, vamoose." she told the men.

Once the men departed, Steele closed the door behind them, while Estelle and Mildred made their way towards the living room, clearly intent on staying longer.

"That man is despicable." Estelle noted.

"I could take a bat to that piñata head of his." Mildred commented.

"Now, it's okay," Steele broke in, trying to placate the women before him. "No need to let Keyes ruin such a joyous occasion. So if you don't mind, Mrs. Steele and I would like to get a jump on our honeymoon activities." His arm reached for Laura, and he was pleasantly surprised to find she willingly folded herself into his side, wrapping her arm around his waist.

"Where are you going?" Estelle inquired.

"Going?"

"On your honeymoon."

"Um…."

"Well, uh, we haven't actually made any specific plans." Laura interceded, while running her hand up and down Steele's chest without thinking about it. The action had become a natural part of them standing next to one another in the months past.

"Yeah, we thought we'd just let the spirit move us, you know?" He smacked Laura's arms several times, hard, once more overplaying his role as devoted husband. She grimaced with irritation.

"You heard Keyes. The man is relentless," Estelle reminded them. "He has raised such a stink about this marriage that my superiors are breathing down my neck which means I'm going to be looking over _your_ shoulders. I recommend you have this honeymoon right away, Mr. Steele. And take _lots_ of pictures."

"I got it!" Mildred interrupted excitedly while grinning wildly.

"What?" Steele asked, clearly puzzled.

"That's my wedding present."

"No, Mildred. No, no, no."

"I said, the honeymoon is on me." She was insistent on the matter, leaving Laura and Steele floundering to come up with an objection that would not insult her. In the end, both recognized that it would be impossible, and accepted they would have to deal with whatever Mildred came up with.

"In that case, Laura and I both thank you for your generosity, Mildred." He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Now, if you ladies don't mind, Laura and I would really like to spend some time alone together. Wedding night and all, you know."

"Of course," Estelle acknowledged, picking up her purse and heading towards the door, Mildred in her wake.

"I'll call you in the morning with the details of your honeymoon trip." Mildred told Steele and Laura, giving them a knowing wink that made both of them cringe.

Releasing Laura's side, he escorted the women to the door. After goodbyes were exchanged, Steele closed the door behind Estelle and Mildred, then swept a hand through his hair before turning to face Laura in time to see her, very un-Laura-like, flop into a chair in the living room. She laid her head against the back of the chair, covering her face with her hands.

"I don't understand. How did this happen?" She asked the question wearily, not expecting an answer, at least the right one. _Can there even be a right answer?_ she asked herself.

Steele approached her slowly, off-kilter from the day's events himself. _How did this happen?_ His question echoed the words Laura had said out loud, but no answers were forthcoming for him either. For now, his sole focus was on Laura. Since Laura had arrived at the church to find him attempting to marry Clarissa, she had lived on the edge of her emotions. He'd seen nearly the full gamut in the last few hours: irritation, anger, jealousy, hurt, disappointment, confusion, outrage, fury, resignation, reluctant amusement, frustration, depression, and for a few moments, fear. What he'd not seen was everything that mattered most to him: Happiness, contentment, faith, trust, hope, tenderness, anticipation, boldness, mischievousness, desire…love. It was as though a light had simply turned off. He hoped, with all that he was, that it was simply due to exhaustion.

Stooping down in front of the chair in which she was sitting, his hands reached for hers, gently pulling them down off her face. His thumbs stroked the back of her hands as he held them within his own, waiting patiently for her to make eye contact with him. When at last she picked up her head from where it lay, he'd been helpless not to drop one of her hands, to cup her face in his palm. His eyes silently pleaded with her not to shove him away.

"May I make a suggestion?" He asked the question softly, worried that too loud a sound, too fast a movement, would send her fleeing from the apartment before he had a chance to try to make things right again. She stared at him blankly, seeming dazed, before she slowly nodded her head at him.

"Let me run you a bath. While you soak off the tension and grime, I'll make us something to eat. After, we can either sleep or talk, your choice." He smiled tenderly at her when she nodded her assent. "Give me a couple of minutes, I'll call you as soon as it's ready for you."

Walking into the bathroom, he set the plug for the tub and turned on the water, getting the water to the near scalding temperature Laura preferred. Grabbing her bubble bath from off the counter, he poured a generous portion under the running water before pulling her razor out of her drawer and setting it on the edge of the tub. He'd thought to make a joke earlier, to lighten the mood, when he'd told her not to use his razor. Instead, he'd wounded. He'd seen the flash of hurt in her eyes before her temper peaked. He turned and leaned against the bathroom counter, braced on his arms, looked in the mirror at himself, didn't much care for what he saw there and turned away, as his hand reached up to brush through his hair again.

Tub filled, he flipped off the faucets and left the bathroom where he found Laura standing in front of the open closet door, staring at her clothes there. He was drawn to her, the need to try to soothe away some of the harm he'd done too strong to stay away. He reached up tentative hands and touched her shoulders, felt her flinch under his hands, but she didn't move away. For a moment she leaned back towards him, seeking contact, then suddenly was a flurry of motion, pulling a blouse and pair of pants down off of hangers, moving away from him to the dresser, to her drawer there, grabbing fresh underwear, a clean bra. Without a glance or a word, she went into the bathroom and closed the door. The quiet snick of the lock reverberated in the room. He stood and stared at the door, then exhaling deeply, a hand rubbed across his face.

He shook himself. Stripping down to only his briefs, he pulled a pair of jeans and a loose-fitting, light-blue button-down from the closet and slipped them on. Without thought, he tossed his tux into the hamper in the corner of the room, then turned and left the bedroom. Opting for simplicity, he tossed together a couple of turkey and Havarti sandwiches, dressing them with tarragon sauce then garnished the plates with some fresh slices of fruit. He fixed them both healthy portions of scotch on the rocks, setting both food and drink on the coffee table before sinking down on the couch. After drinking half the scotch in his glass in one long pull, he leaned his head against the back of the couch and closed his eyes.

He'd bungled it and bungled it bad, of that he'd no doubt. The only question that remained now was - at what cost? That Laura had volunteered – volunteered, he reminded himself – to marry him to keep him here in LA had given him hope. That only a little while ago she had unconsciously wrapped an arm around his waist, had run her hand up and down his chest as they spoke to Mildred and Estelle had added to that hope, despite her upset in the bedroom. He tried to cling to those details as he waited for Laura to emerge from the bath, yet he kept seeing over and over again in his head her dazed look as she sat in the chair twenty minutes ago, kept hearing her words from earlier – "this is the worst day of my life", kept hearing the lock to the bathroom door engage.

In the bathroom, Laura had moved from his large tub to the shower. She'd soaked most of the grime off of her body, out of her pores, before stepping out and allowing the dirty water to drain. As she'd stepped out of the tub, she saw the razor Steele had laid out for her, and felt her heart clench. When he'd made the off handed comment earlier not to use his razor, it felt as though he'd taken a physical blow at her. For months now she'd had her own belongings here in this bathroom: razor, make up, brush, hair dryer, shampoo, bubble bath, lotions and all the other items she used on a daily basis. Just as she'd been keeping clothes in his closet, her underwear, bras, pantyhose, stockings in a drawer in his bedroom. Just as he'd been keeping his version of those same items at her place. His comment had made her feel he'd forgotten that, just as he'd forgotten to include her in his latest problem.

It had stung. _No, it had cut,_ she corrected herself. _And it had cut deep._

She stood under the spray of the shower, washed her hair, rinsed, repeated the process…twice…until she felt that the mud was finally completely out of it. Smoothing some conditioner through her locks, she let the fact that she was married sink in. It had seemed simple enough when she'd volunteered to do what was needed to keep him in the country: manufacture some documents, exchange some false vows, then move on as though it had never transpired. But that was before she realized they would actually have to live every day pretending that they were husband and wife, that they were, as he put it, 'irrevocably married.' For two years…two… _years_. Two years during which she would never know if they were together because they wanted to be, or together because they had to be.

They'd never discussed marriage, not even in the abstract. Since January they had been spending weekends together, testing the waters if you will, when they'd both admitted they needed more: more time together, more time sleeping within one another's arms, more time exploring their relationship and nurturing it. They'd agreed if those two days a week together went well, they would extend that time into the work week, then see how they fared at that point. It was after they'd been presumed dead and had lived as an island unto themselves for two days, that they'd finally extended their time together from Friday until Sunday to Thursday until Monday. It had been going well. So well, that she could actually envision them making it official and moving in together... somewhere down the road... considerably down the road.

Mos definitely _after_ , of course, they'd turned that corner and were able to see if they could maintain their professional and personal lives once sex had been introduced. They'd both acknowledged the time had come to take that step forward. She'd even gone on the pill, in preparation for it. Then, last weekend, when she'd finally decided to simply let nature take its course, they had just about crossed the line that would take them from friends to lovers when he'd put the brakes on. Claiming they deserved more: a truly romantic weekend during which they could indulge in one another without the world outside intruding. They had reservations next week at a luxury hotel on Catalina to that end.

 _Next weekend._ She laughed. _If we carried through on those plans we wouldn't just finally become lovers, but would be consummating our marriage._

The notion struck her as absurd… ridiculously absurd… laughingly, ridiculously absurd. It started as a giggle, then escalated into a full laugh, then at the thought of her mother discovering she and her Mr. Steele had waited until after marriage…her laugh reached the edge of hysteria. It took her several minutes to rein her emotions in, but she finally wrested back control.

She pried herself from the warm and soothing spray of the shower, forced herself to dry off, get dressed, to brush her hair. She couldn't put off talking to him forever. Didn't even know if she wanted to put it off as there was one thought that kept returning, one thing she could not deny: he'd promised her for months he was not going anywhere, and today he'd proven just how far he was willing to go to keep that promise to her. The only question that remained was did that matter more than the fact that once again he had not come to her when he was in trouble. That once again he'd left destruction in the wake of his refusal to ask her for help.

 _I don't know. I just don't know._

Right now, she only knew four things with absolute certainty. Firstly, she was achingly tired, mentally and physically. She needed to eat, she needed to sleep. Secondly, her analytical brain had shut down, due to the first. Until she ate, slept, she would be unable to think clearly. Tonight she needed _not_ to think. Thirdly, she knew that right now, right at this moment, the only thing she wanted was the peace and closeness that they had shared these last months. For the better part of a half year he'd been asking her to turn to him when she was upset, afraid, instead of turning away from him. It had slowly become a habit, allowing herself the comfort of his arms, and she wanted nothing more at the moment. And lastly, she knew she was not going to deny herself any of the first three things.

Steele stilled as he heard the bedroom door open, kept his eyes closed. He was bone weary from the stress of the day, but even more so from the uncertainty of what would happen the moment Laura walked into the room. That she'd been in the bathroom for nearly an hour did not bode well, he knew. That she would have spent that time erecting the walls back around herself, wrapping herself in the comfort and safety of all her rules was something he did not doubt. That in his desperation to keep himself with her he'd hurt her he could not deny. It was only losing her that he could not accept.

He steeled himself as she neared him. Ready, waiting for the words he'd heard too often before: that they, personally, were through, well and good this time. Cíochnaithe… thar… rinneadh. Over… finished… done.

What he had not expected was for her to sit on the couch next to him, drink in hand, and curl into his side as though this night was like all the nights they had shared before it. He let out the breath he'd been holding slowly, allowed himself the risk of wrapping his arm around her. When she settled more comfortably into his shoulder, he lay his head on top of hers, nuzzling his cheek in her hair. The relief that he felt at the moment was akin to only two other times in his life: when she'd roused to consciousness after he'd believed her dead when Carl shot her and in that first moment he'd seen her when she'd come to London to bring him home.

She yawned deeply. Already tired, the scotch drank on an empty stomach was quickly having a sedative effect on her. Recognizing this, Steele gave her a small nudge. She leaned back her head to look at him, her eyes slightly glazed from a combination of alcohol and exhaustion.

"Let's get some food into you, before you fall asleep. I'd wager you've not eaten anything today." She thought about it for a moment and realized he was right. The day had been such chaos from start to end that it had never occurred to her to stop and eat. While trying to squelch another yawn, she gave him a nod, then scooted over on the couch to sit up straight, taking the plate he handed her.

"Turkey and Havarti?" She eyed the sandwich, her mouth beginning to water at the mere sight of it.

"Aye, with tarragon." He watched as she took a large bite, closed her eyes in enjoyment.

"It's delicious." She spoke around the food in her mouth, something she did only when most tired or most uncomfortable, the latter a habit he'd first noticed years ago when she'd revealed his friend, Derek Vivyan had made a pass at her. That night she'd shoveled food into her mouth everytime Derek's name came into the conversation, even as she'd kept insisting adamantly that she was not hungry.

She relished each bite of the sandwich. It was hands down her favorite sandwich by far. That he'd made it a point to make it tonight was not surprising to her. It was one of the many little things he did for her daily. His way of taking care of her. One of the few things she would allow without kicking up a fuss in her determination to cling to her independence.

And, having seen her reach for her glass of scotch several times, only to sit it back down without taking a drink, he did it again. He rose from the sofa and headed to the kitchen, returning with a cup of the coffee he'd set to brewing while he made the sandwiches. She grinned at him over the rim of the cup. When she took the last bite of her sandwich, she leaned back against the cushions of the couch and drew her legs up underneath her, coffee cup still clutched in her hands. She noted he'd barely touched his own food, a clear sign of his level of stress.

He picked up his nearly empty glass of scotch, prepared to drain it. Her hand stopped his mid-course, took the glass from him. Setting her coffee on the table in front of her, she stood and headed to the kitchen.

"Eat, while I go make you some tea."

"Coffee's fine." She nodded, then waited until he picked up a sandwich half before turning her back to him. She returned shortly and noted at once that it was still in his hand, untouched.

"You need to eat," she prodded him, only to watch him drop the sandwich on the plate and shove the plate away. He leaned against the back of the couch, rubbing his face, before dropping his hands to look at her.

"Where are we, Laura?" He looked haggard, drawn, his voice strained. He was grateful that she hadn't turned on her heel and walked out the minute Estelle left, but not knowing where they stood, what was on her mind, was wearing at him quickly.

"I don't know." She told him resignedly, honestly. She had considered a flippant remark, but realized it would do little to relieve the tension. "There's been a lot to process today. Questions I don't have answers to. Questions I'm not sure I _want_ the answers to. Starting with how long you've known about Keyes, the INS." She watched as he rubbed at his neck, stood and taking his glass over to the wet bar, refilled it with another generous portion of scotch, took a long draw of it before turning to look at her.

"Three weeks now. I received the first letter a little over a week after we got back from New York." He watched as she absorbed the answer, closed her eyes, processed it, nodded.

"So you knew. Last weekend when you... when you didn't want to... when you suggested we wait." He leaned over, placing his elbows on his knees, head hanging down. She took him in - the swipe of his hand through his hair, then at his mouth, the misery on his face when he looked at her, the nod of his head. She stood, moved across the room to stand by the fireplace before looking at him again. Her calm frightened him more than any pique of anger could have. "You lied to me."

Steele jumped up from the couch, began to pace, turned to look at her. "No!... yes. Both. I couldn't bloody well make love with you only to find myself deported within the week! What would that have done to you? Everything you've feared would have come to pass. We finally cross that line and then pfffttttt," he made a hand motion, "I'm gone. What would you have thought Laura?"

"And Catalina? What was that?"

"I'd hoped the matter resolved by then. That I would've managed to fix things with the INS. Then when we went to Catalina, our first time... together... would be in … in a worthy setting. That we could simply enjoy being with one another without interruption."

She wanted to believe him, more than anything. Then a thought occurred to her and her eyes widened, her mouth formed an "O", her breathing escalated at the horror of the idea. "Did you know? That night when you were...when we were... My god, were you working out the details of your pending nuptials even then?"

"No!" He all but roared the answer, before forcing himself to take deep, calming breath. He brought down the volume of his voice although it was no less strained, no less affronted. "I may have made mistakes," he saw the look of disbelief on her face and amended, "alright some big mistakes, huge. But I'm not a bloody twit, Laura! Do you honestly think I would believe for a moment that you'd forgive me something like that? I would have bowed out of our time together, something, but not that!"

"When? When then did you decide the blissful state of domesticity with the hooker was your answer?!" She was pacing now, anger simmering.

"Tuesday. After my last meeting with the INS. I pointed out that I'd been living here, working here, for nearly five years. I pointed out that what you and I do are of benefit to the city. I tried every card I could think of but had nothing with which to play the winning hand. Either I came up with a different solution, or as of six o'clock this evening..." He waved his arm, let the answer they both knew hang in the air. His voice took on a pleading quality. "I was desperate."

"Why?"

"Why?" He scoffed at the question, laughed sardonically, lifting his hands, dropping them. "You know why. We know the toll my... uh... absence took on both of us last summer. How hard it was not knowing, how hard it was being apart. But now? After our time together since? You've at last let me in, have given yourself over to what we are meant to be together." He sank down into the corner of the couch, dropped his head, swiped at his hair again. "I'd no idea it'd be like this. I'd always imagined it would be good between us, but never came close to the reality of it. I couldn't lose that." He looked at her, stress lining his face. "I couldn't lose you. We've been so..." He shook his head in resignation, lifted his hands helplessly, dropped them, lay his face in them, his elbows resting on his knees.

"Happy." She finished the sentence for him, the word spoken softly.

She couldn't deny the truth of what he said: what it was like, for both of them, when he was gone the summer prior; that neither of them had suspected they'd be where they were before today; even that the idea of losing what they had built, now, was unfathomable. Laura walked across the room, lowered herself to sit on the sofa next to him, then laying her head against his arm, rubbed his back. She knew they'd both had enough for the day. There would be more time for talk in the morning. He sighed deeply after a minute or so, then after wrapping an arm around Laura's back, leaned back against the couch, taking her with him. His hand brushed her hair over her shoulder before tipping her chin up so she was looking at him.

"Are we going to be okay, Laura?" His gazed searched her face as she considered his question.

"I'd like to think so. Although we still have a lot to talk about, a lot to work out." She rubbed her hand up and down his chest, patted it. "For now? Why don't you shower, while I clean up out here. I'm exhausted, and you don't look much better, yourself."

"Mmmm." He murmured in assent, standing after she backed away from him. Looking down at her, he leaned over and bussed her on the cheek before heading into the bathroom for a shower.

Laura waited until she heard the shower running then moved to the bedroom where she changed into a pair of pajamas. In the living room she gathered up their plates and glasses, shaking her head at his untouched sandwich. For a man who could not stand to go to bed hungry, he'd not taken so much as a bite of his dinner. After scraping the plates into the trash can, she settled in at the sink to wash the dishes, allowing herself a moment of reflection on the day's events. On Steele, more specifically.

She hadn't seen him in the state he'd been in today since the first few months after he'd arrived in LA. _No,_ she corrected herself, _not even then. Today was like when DesCoines first showed back up, framed him for murder. The desperation, frenetic energy, reacting to everything, not thinking clearly. He ended up playing straight into DesCoines's hands then, was lucky to make it out alive...or at least not in prison for the rest of his life. Now? He's played right into the hands of Keyes and the INS._

Grabbing a dish towel from the drawer, she began drying their plates and glasses, putting them up one at a time, before emptying the coffee pot, rinsing it, setting up the coffee maker for the morning. She continued to ruminate on their situation.

 _How did he expect to pull off a bogus marriage to the hooker? Any INS agent worth a salt would have seen through it in a minute, and the results would have been disastrous. Instead of being kicked out of the country, he'd have found himself behind bars for years. Certainly, he should have known Keyes would not let it go. The man was a piranha. What did he imagine would happen to us? When will he learn to come to me when he's in trouble?_

In the living room she gathered up the empty beer bottles, left behind by Juan and his men, and tossed them into the garbage can in the kitchen. Then, on a sigh, recognizing her need for sleep at the moment trumped her need for thought, she went into the bedroom where she slipped into bed, pulling the covers up once she'd settled in.

The door to the bathroom opened shortly and Steele emerged, uncertainty painted all over his countenance. He glanced at Laura, saw no signs of what he should do. He exhaled with resignation and walked to the closet door. Opening it, he reached for the pillows and blankets he kept there for guests.

"Come to bed, Mr. Steele." Laura made the comment as casually as if it were any other night. His hand froze, rested for a moment on top of the pillow he'd been about to pick up. Pulling back his hand, he closed the closet door, then walked across the room to slide into the bed on the opposite side of Laura. She turned off the lamp on her side of the bed, then scooted across the bed towards him.

"This..." she plucked at his pajama top, wrinkled her nose "...has got to go." At the familiarity of her words, he smiled for the first time that evening since Estelle and Mildred had left. Sitting up, he pulled the shirt over his head, and tossed it in the direction of the end of the bed. The moment he settled on his back, Laura wrapped herself against his side, a leg and arm splaying across his body, her head settling into his shoulder. He pulled her close, then leaned down and kissed her firmly on top of the head.

"Is it going to be this easy, Laura?" He'd been expecting war all evening. He'd been expecting her to storm out. None of that had come to fruition. What he'd not been expecting, hadn't even dared to hope for, was the calm rationale she'd used all evening, this. But, then, he'd not expected her to volunteer to marry him in order to keep him in LA either. He felt her head shift against the chest, knew she was looking at him, before her head shifted down again, her hand starting to stroke his side.

"I doubt it. But, then, I'm too tired to think tonight. Right now I just want to forget about today. To sleep. Are you okay with that?"

"I am." He exhaled deeply, letting go of the stress that had riddled his body all day, allowed himself to sink more comfortably into the bed.

With no further words between them, they lost themselves in sleep.

* * *

Steele woke with a shaky draw of breath, a slight sheen of sweat coating his skin. He immediately turned his head to make sure he'd not woken Laura, watching as she snuggled back up against him, removing the space he'd put between them with his sudden movement. But, she slept on, seemingly oblivious to his fretful sleep. He was relieved in that, at least. Once he was certain she was fully settled, he slowly eased himself out from under her, then tucked the covers around her before making his way out of the room.

In the living room, he made his way to the wet bar and poured himself a generous helping of scotch, his third of the evening. An oddity for a man that seldom turned to liquor for solace, but on the eve of his wedding had done just that. Wearily, he folded his long frame into the corner of the couch, then leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. He sighed deeply as his free hand reached up to rub the back of his neck.

The dream had been too real. _Of course it seemed real,_ he thought to himself, _because it was. Memories of times before when I believed her lost to me._ The dream had begun with the image of them standing along the wall in Cannes, when she'd ended their personal relationship. Her voice echoing throughout the visage, 'I've decided not to see you outside of business hours'. That image had segwayed into the next. Him sitting on the couch, where he at this very moment sat, as her words from that night replayed over and over again, 'maybe we take some time'. As that memory faded away the next had come calling. Laura at the Sensitivity Spa, fury lighting her features, as she screamed, 'Well, go ahead, get out. I was better off without you anyway!' From there the montage of images had picked up speed: watching her fall from the beam at the Federal Reserve; hearing the gunshot when she'd been alone in the warehouse with Gillespie; a phone endlessly ringing while she was in the hands of her stalker Wally. It had been the image of Carl standing over her with a gun, a bullet hole clearly seen in the back of the jacket she was wearing that had finally jarred him out of the nightmare.

Remembering the dream now, he took a long drink of the scotch, nearly emptying the glass before setting in on the table before him and rubbing at his face with both of his hands. Knowing that sleep would not come easily, he picked up the remote and aimlessly shuffled through the channels until he ran across a Bogart classic. He settled into the couch, half-heartedly attempting find enjoyment, solace, anything in the familiarity of the movie. He found none of those things, finding instead that a dependable, time-worn treatment guarantee to help him calm, to think, had also failed him in the wake of the events of the last 24 hours.

He heard the slight rustling of the sheets in the bedroom, his attention immediately drawn to where Laura was, as it always was when she was near. He listened as she moved, then finally appeared to settle back down. He found himself torn: half of him wishing she had awakened and come to him, while the other half was relieved to have time alone with his thoughts.

 _Time. It appears to be the theme of this misadventure, this waterloo. Four years finding our way to one another, time wasted when we could have been finding our way together. Four months of loneliness, unspeakable loneliness when we were separated whilst I was in London, time in which we learned how much we need one another near. Eight months of happiness, as we both gave into to what was always between us, time spent learning the peace, solace, contentment that each other's mere presence brought. Three weeks of fearfully awaiting the meeting with the INS, only to find a new concept of time, the number of days until I was to be deported. One hour and ten minutes to find a bride, the amount of time it took for Laura to marry me and possibly destroy all that we have built. Moments of anxiety, the amount of time it took for Laura to end us in the past._

 _Time. What I may no longer have with Laura, depending on what she decides the consequences for my actions will be._

Picking up his glass, he knocked back the rest of the scotch, then after setting the glass back on the table, he slouched back into the corner of the couch, slinging an arm over his eyes.

 _Time. It's torture. Not knowing. Waiting to find out what the penalty's to be, what I'll lose. Not knowing if a door will be left open for me to mend things. Not knowing if it's over... a_ _rna dhéanamh. Not knowing if this, right now, is the last of our time together._

 _Time. What I should have taken to think, time to realize that the only mistake I could make was not including Laura in what was happening from the first._

He knew, that if she was unable to forgive him this time, that would be the reason why. He had excluded her, again. He had not trusted her to stand by him, again. He had not done what he'd been urging her to do for months now: he'd not turned to her when he was afraid, again. _She told me very clearly in Vail, the night after her accident, that shutting her out was the most painful thing I could do to her._

Now, only time would tell what would come of them and his only choice was to sit and wait until that time came.

Bloody torture, indeed.

* * *

The cool air in the room touching her body roused Laura in the middle of the night. Half-asleep her hand searched for Steele, for the comforting warmth of his body, wanting to draw him near. It was only in not finding him that she fully woke, her eyes seeking what her hands could not find. Hearing the low drone of the television filtering into the bedroom from the living room beyond, she climbed out of bed. Grabbing the pillow and blanket out of the closet, she found Steele stretched out along the length of the couch watching _To Have or Have Not_ (Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Warner Bros., 1944).

"Scoot over." He glanced at her, then moved to his side, watched as she positioned the pillow, stretched out next to him, spread the blanket over them both. Once she was settled he wrapped an arm around her waist, gathered her close. When her fingers laced with his and she pulled their joined hands up to rest between her breasts, he nuzzled her head with his check. She smiled sleepily at him, then dozed back off.

By the time the closing credits rolled across the television screen, he'd fallen asleep with Laura still nestled close to him.

* * *

She woke to the smell of crepes cooking, coffee brewing. She immediately wondered how much sleep Steele had gotten the night before. On her way to the bathroom she glanced at his alarm clock. Six-thirteen. Not much. She brushed her teeth, her hair, splashed some cool water on her face, then joined him in the kitchen. She poured a cup of coffee then hoisted herself up on the island to sit next to the stove top, sipping her coffee as she watched him finish up the crepes. Snatching a piece of sliced strawberry from a nearby plate, she slipped it in her mouth. That he neither commented nor reacted spoke volumes.

"How long have you been up?" He glanced at her, tried to flash her a smile that resembled more of a grimace, then returned his attention to the crepes that were browning.

"A bit." Plating the crepe, he flipped off the burner, then offered her a hand assisting her off the counter. He picked up both plates, headed towards the dining room. "Shall we eat?"

She eyed him carefully as she followed behind. That he was drawing into himself, there was no doubt. The question was why. There'd been no major confrontations yet, no shouts of blame. They sat at the table in silence. He ate, though didn't enjoy. Rather he just fed his body because it needed fuel. She took a bite here and there but for the most part just shoved the food around her plate with the fork. Once his plate was clear, she lay her own fork down, looked at him.

"Talk to me. What's..." She waived her hand towards him, at the air around them "... _this_ about?" His mood, her lack of understanding of it, was setting her on edge. He studied her carefully.

"Are you sure you want to get into that?" She nodded her head sharply in reply.

"Yes." Anything was better than this, the silence, the not knowing. She nearly changed her mind when he leveled intense blue eyes on hers, eyes that said there would be no edging around the questions, answers, not now.

"Where are we?" He studied her intently, watched her discomfiture grow, saw the moment she decided to try to shed the seriousness of the moment.

"In the dining room currently." Her response was flippant, an attempt to lighten the mood. She jumped when his palm slammed down on the dining room table, making the plates and cups there rattle.

"No!" He fairly shouted. "No more avoidance. It's worse than you simply ending us. The not knowing. Yell, scream, cry, throw something, whatever it takes. But _answer_ the _bloody question_! Where are we, Laura?" Laura sprung up from the table, took off for the terrace beyond. He followed in her wake. "Do you think for a moment that I don't know how badly I've bodged this?"

She spun around, faced him, anger finally surfacing. He wasn't sure if he found her anger a blessed relief or something to instill fear. Yet, either way, at least it was honest, heartfelt.

"Do you? Do you truly understand what you've done? You certainly didn't show any indication of that yesterday as you ran around planning your nuptials to the hooker... when you locked me in that room and still tried to marry her...when you blamed me for both the contract with Vigilance, the passport that got you home. You certainly seemed to be having a grand old time on the trawler when you 'married' me..." her voice broke on the last two words. She took a deep breath, wresting control over her emotions before continuing "...when we came back here, playing the role of the happy newlyweds. Do you really know what you've done?"

" _Yes_. Yes, yes, I do. The question is what's the cost to be. I'm not so foolish as to imagine there won't be one. But this..." He waved his arm towards the interior of the apartment "...this is bloody torture. You acting as though nothing has happened, me constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop..."

"Why didn't you come to me?" She interrupted, asking the question that had plagued her since she'd discovered his latest shenanigans. "When will you _ever_ trust me enough _to come to me_?"

"I didn't know how." He deflated before her very eyes, sank down onto the chaise lounge, dropping his head, running his hand through the back of his hair. "I didn't know how to tell you that once more my past was threatening all that we've been building: the image of Remington Steele, the Agency...us."

"But this wasn't your past. This wasn't Daniel, Felicia, Henri or even Anna. Even if it was, you should have still come to me. So we could have figured it out _together_."

" _Of course_ it was my past, Laura!" He looked at her, agitated that she did not understand. "'The man with no name,' remember? God knows you've reminded me of it enough over the years. My past coming back to haunt me, the fact that I have no proof of my existence. Had it not been for that, you wouldn't have had to... manufacture... a passport out of thin air. Keyes would have had nothing to latch onto."

"This is what I mean by you should have come to me! I didn't 'manufacture' your passport. I called in some favors, both here in LA and in London. Your passport was officially issued. _That_ wasn't the problem!" He stared at her, confused.

"But INS said it was an irregularity with my passport that was the foundation of my legitimacy to be here in the States. What else if not that the passport was illegitimate?" He watched as Laura paced, before leaning against the wall of the terrace, her fingers rubbing at her left brow.

"I made a mistake. I wasn't thinking. I was too wrapped up in simply getting you home with me. The Earl of Claridge. He was helping me on the London side. He knew you'd been born in Ireland, so that is what was listed as your birthplace on your passport. I didn't realize until later that it would not mesh up with the birth certificate _I did_ manufacture for you when you first arrived. The birth certificate that shows you were born here, in LA. I had hoped no one would catch the anomaly. But then..."

"In walks Keyes, determined to find something..." He continued for her, swiping at his face, as things began falling together in his mind.

"And he found it. It wouldn't have been difficult. All you would have to do is compare them, side-by-side." She laughed, cynicism lacing it. "You didn't realize how close to the mark you came, when you told me in the limo it was my fault... because of the passport."

He looked over at her from where he still sat on his chaise, leaning on his arms against his knees. "It was a poor attempt at a joke, Laura. I never blamed you. How could I? That passport allowed me to come home with you."

"That doesn't change the fact," she smiled ruefully at him "… that it was my blunder which brought us here. I'd like to think that we could have fixed it, that I could have gone to my contacts, have had the passport corrected, if..."

"If I'd come to you, told you. I'm sorry. It wasn't a matter of not trusting you. I'm simply bloody well tired of my past coming back to haunt me, the both of us, risking everything." He sighed deeply, scrubbed at his face with his hands.

"So you decided to try to fix things on your own before I could find out about what was going on..."

"Mmmmm. I foolishly thought it would be so easy as turning on a little charm. Then on Tuesday, when it was clear I would have to make..." He looked away, hand returning to his hair, as he made a motion with his head indicating the foolishness of his beliefs "...other arrangements to stay..."

"You decided to marry the hooker, rather than coming to me, even then." She concluded, anger surging again. "Just how did you see that playing out, had you succeeded? Where did you see _us_ in that picture? What about our time together? Catalina? This..." She swept her hand out, stumbled for a word that would not reveal too much, then giving up, just said it, "...this life together that we've been building since London?"

"I'd hoped that once it was all said and done, that once INS agreed I could stay, that I'd be able to make you understand that I'd done it, all of it, for us. That we could take the time we both needed to figure out how to move ahead with one another, to make what's between us a reality." Even as he said the words he recognized now how preposterous an idea that had been. Laura, understand him marrying another woman...for any reason? Then to carry on as though he were not, even if he were only technically, married? He gave a short laugh, sat there shaking his head at his tomfoolery, watched as Laura resumed pacing.

"Sooooo, where, by chance, were you and Clarissa going to live?" She tapped the tips of her fingers together as she paced, as she thought.

"I'd continued to live here, of course, she at her apartment. I'd continued to... uh... rent... her services as needed for interviews and the like."

"And it never occurred to you that the INS would expect the happy newlyweds to live together? To show ample proof of domesticity? That there would likely be unscheduled visits to validate both of these things?"

"No..." He began only to be interrupted.

"Then when you did realize it, what would you have done? Moved Clarissa in here? You move into her place? Share a bed, _platonically_ , _of course_..." The last said very sarcastically "…Share a home... share a life?"

"No, of course not, I'd have figured out something."

"What? What would you have figured out? Keyes would have pushed it, would have been determined to prove your marriage fraudulent. You would have had to bow to the pressure to share a domicile at some point. There would have been no choice. Then what? I'd come over, we'd continue forward with our relationship while your wife kept us company?" She laughed at the absurdity of it all.

"I wasn't thinking..." He raised his hands in a helpless gesture, dropped them, shook his head again.

"No, you weren't. But let's leave the point of your domicile alone for a moment." She continued to pace, tap her fingers. "You hoped we could take the time to move ahead, to make 'us' a reality. How exactly was that going to happen? We've taken great care to make 'Remington Steele' a public figure in LA. LA... the land of gossip, rumors, innuendo, where everyone is always looking for a good scandal. Did you think word of Remington Steele's marriage would not get leaked to the press at some point? Hell, Clarissa brought along all of her very enthusiastic...uh...co-workers. Did you honestly believe one of them would not alert the press?"

"It hadn't occurred to me..." He sighed as she interrupted him again.

"How would that have affected the Agency? The great Remington Steele... marrying a _hooker_?" She watched as he grimaced, clearly not having thought of that particular repercussion. "I see you understand my point there, so let's leave that go at the moment as well. How exactly were we to continue our relationship? We wouldn't be able to go to dinner, the movies, the theater, ballet, on trips together without risking the press getting word of it, which, of course, would mean the INS would be aware as well. Clandestine visits at my loft then? Furtive clinches at the office?"

"I don't know. I didn't have time to..."

"Think," she interrupted again. "Clearly. If you had you would have realized that in marrying the hooker you would have ended us. It's bad enough that for years I have been 'unknown woman' and 'unnamed associate.' By your actions, I would have been relegated to 'mistress'…" she started laughing. "'Mistress' when we haven't even become lovers yet. Destroying us, the reputation of 'Remington Steele' and the Agency in the process. Did you actually believe I'd allow any of that to come to pass, no matter how much I wanted to be with you?"

"I don't know what to say..." He held up his hands again, dropped them, misery cloaking his form. "I wasn't..."

"Thinking. I know. Because you don't think when you find yourself in these situations. You react, and keep reacting, becoming more and more frantic as things go wrong. You should have come to me. We could have spoken, worked through the details, found a way out. It's what we do: see the details the other has missed. But, once again, you didn't give me... _us_... that chance! You told me in Vail that I need to learn how to turn to you when I'm afraid, not away. Why is it any different for you? Why won't you come to me instead of shutting me out?"

He dropped his face into his hands at her words. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shut you out. Not really. We'd been doing so well. I didn't want to risk..." He fell silent.

"Me ending us again. Am I right?" He looked up at her, anguish in his eyes.

"Are you?" He asked the question on a hoarse voice. Watched as she leaned back against the terrace wall again, wrapping her arms around herself, trying to find some comfort. She looked away from him, shaking her head.

"I don't know." Her voice reflected his own misery. "I don't think so. But - I don't know. Despite all that's happened, I don't want to lose what we have, what we've been working so hard for. But I'd be lying if I said that this doesn't change things, hasn't set us back." She turned away, looking out at the city below.

"I know I've made a mess of things. I know. And I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am." He stood, approaching her slowly, but stopped several steps away from her, not knowing if she would be receptive to his touch at the moment.

"I know you are. That and the fact that you did all of this to try to stay here, for us, is what I'm trying to hold on to." He closed his eyes in relief at her words, only then dared to step next to her, to lay his hands on her hips and draw her near.

"Laura." He murmured her name gruffly, in that way of his that she could not resist, even more so now as she heard the undertones of deep regret lacing through his voice. Without thought she took a small step forward, laying her hands on his chest, and tipped her chin up to him. She felt his sigh on her lips, at contact. His lips explored her own softly, never trying to deepen the kiss, to turn it to passion. Instead, it was a kiss born of the need to know that they would be alright, that they would make it through this latest fiasco. When he ended it, she resisted his attempts to pull her into his arms, and took a step away from him again.

"You're confusing me," she told him, shaking her head and holding up her hand as he reached for her again. "Part of me just wants to forget everything that's happened, to just go on like we were because we _were_ so happy. But then there's the other part of me that can't forget. Can't forget watching you try to marry someone else. Can't forget that once again you didn't come to me when you were in trouble and needed help. Can't forget that in the eyes of the INS we are married." Her last words jarred her analytical mind into gear. "What are we doing?! Are we even ready for this? Can we actually convince the INS that we are a happily _married_ couple? What were we thinking?"

"Laura..." The ring of the phone from the living room had both of them turning their head towards it, before they looked at one another, exasperated. Steele glanced at his watch. "Who the bloody hell would be calling at eight o'clock on a Saturday morning?" He complained.

"Whoever it is, their timing's certainly not the best." Laura walked back into the apartment and went to the phone to stop its incessant pealing.

"Hello? Oh, good morning Mildred... No, you did not interrupt Mr. Steele and I," she rolled her eyes at him "This morning?... When?... Mildred, that's only three hours from now!... Yes, I supposed you did think Mr. Steele and I would be anxious to leave on our honeymoon..." Another eye roll towards Steele "...Mexico? Oh Mildred, you know what happened the last time we were in Mexico... Yes, I know it's not Acapulco but... Now Mildred, don't get upset, I am sure Mr. Steele and I will have a wonderful time... Yes, I know you are only trying to make us happy and we appreciate that... Yes, of course we'll go... Yes, we'll take plenty of pictures... Of course we'll touch base, let you know how it's going... Mildred, I have to go. Mr. Steele and I will need to get packed if the plane leaves at eleven... Thanks, Mildred. We'll see you soon."

She hung up the phone exasperated with both the content of the call and the woman on the other side.

"Mexico? She's sending us to Mexico?" Steele asked, dumbfounded.

"I know, I know." Laura agreed with him, frustration coloring her voice. "I swear there are times when Mildred just does not think. She was there in Acapulco. You'd think she'd have remembered it was anything but a romantic getaway.

"We could simply let her believe we've gone. Book a flight to Maui or Figi instead..." Seeing the look on Laura's face, he let the thought go. "I know, I know. Then Mexico it is I guess."

He followed Laura into the bedroom, watched as she quickly stripped her pajamas, his blood heating as she did so, then pull on the pants and shirt she'd worn the evening before.

"Get packed and call Fred. Have him pick me up at the loft. I'm going to head home and get packed while you take care of what you need to here. Make it quick, though, as we have to be at the airport in only two hours if we want to check-in on time."

"Yes, yes," he acknowledged, and followed her as she walked to the front door. "Laura?"

She knew what she he was going to ask before he even said it. "Well, finish our conversation on the flight. Okay?"

"Mmmmmm." He acknowledged wordlessly.

"Let's just hope that Mexico works out better this time than the last. I don't think we can withstand many more disasters." Her words drew a frown to his face. He'd hoped, out there on the terrace, that they'd agreed to move forward, granted from several steps back, but forward nonetheless. While he'd not begun to imagine this would be a true honeymoon, by any means, he'd thought it would give them an opportunity to mend what had been broken. Her words, however, held an ominous tone that made him nervous. He drew her into a kiss, was comforted in the response of her lips under his.

She pulled away, opening the door. "I'll see you when you get to the loft."

He nodded, and watched the door close behind her.

(To Be Continued...maybe)

* * *

Do I carry on, or simply consider this little project a wrap and continue on the musings of Season 4 and Post Season 5?


	3. Chapter 3

Yes, there is a lot of dialogue from the actual episode... a natural hazard of writing within an episode. Just trust in the madness and see where it takes our intrepid duo.

* * *

(Chapter 2)

The trip to Mexico had been an unmitigated disaster from the start. They'd arrived at the airport to find Mildred had booked them into coach, immediately vanquishing their tradition of sharing a champagne toast on their flight. Seated next to them were two very portly people whose shared girth effectively shoved Laura all but into Steele's lap, while eliminating any possibility of the private conversation they'd intended to have during the flight. The limo that met them in Mexico turned out not to be a limo at all, but a small twin-prop plane that would fly them, a couple of others and chickens...yes, chickens... to their next stop. A ramshackle bus greeted them there to transport them to their final destination - a bus that had been shot at by a band of banditos that went by the name of the Malvados. When the bus unceremoniously dropped them in front of the dilapidated Hotel Del Amour, their journey into hell was complete. Both of their moods were already bleak when they walked into the dirty, run down room that served as a honeymoon suite in the establishment. When the light bulb that Laura had attempted to tie mosquito netting around came out of the ceiling, dumping handfuls of plaster in her hair in the process, they lay back on the bed together laughing hysterically. It was only when they calmed that he heard her mutter, almost silently to herself, "It's always something."

Steele's mind immediately latched on to her words, remembering in an instant their conversation in London in which she'd pointed out that there was always something, someone coming between them, after which she'd pondered if they should consider they were not meant to be. On the heels of all that had transpired the day before, he knew he needed to get her mind out of that superstitious mode of thinking as quickly as humanly possible. The situation was ripe for her to back away, to close the door on them once more.

Standing, he held out a hand to her.

"Let's go for a walk, shall we?" She glanced up at him from where she still lay prone on the bed, seemed inclined to turn him down at first, but after hesitating, nodded her head, taking his hand.

They walked on a pathway that had been cleared through the jungle, on the boundaries bordering the hotel. Silence loomed heavily between them, and Steele glanced at Laura several times, knowing that her mind had turned to the worst. She'd made it a point to keep a distance between them and although it was slight, that it existed at all was a concern. Even more alarming was the pensive glances she stole towards him several times, believing she had not been seen. But seen her he had. The silence lingered, becoming more uncomfortable the longer it went on.

After a scratch of his brow and a swipe at his mouth, Steele crossed his arms, the cleared his throat before he spoke.

"A peso for your thoughts." Laura glanced at him, a glance that he did not return as he ran his tongue nervously through his mouth. When he dared to look at her, he found her watching him, as she opened her mouth to speak, before she turned and looked away.

"Nothing." She prevaricated.

"Oh." He nodded his head, irritation seeping into him. _Here it is,_ he thought to himself, _the proverbial other shoe about to drop. She's all but convinced herself it would be easier to end us than to continue on._ He looked away from her, a hand running across his face again, then running along his chin.

Laura glanced at him again, knowing he knew where her mind had gone. _May as well just put it out there then,_ she thought resignedly to herself.

"I was just thinking why we put up with all of this? Why it never seems to get any easier." She was calm when she spoke, her words tinged with sadness. Steele, still rubbing his fingers along his jaw, glanced at her.

"You mean why we don't just give up and, uh, go our separate ways?" His hand made a back and forth motion, before he crossed his arms once more, his tongue once again making a nervous journey across the inside of his cheek. Laura watched him before speaking.

"Do you have any answers?"

He laughed on a breath, shook his head, refusing to look her way. _Yes, of course I have answers. Beginning with the fact that we can never move truly forwarded until we are both willing to cross that line. It's only then that we will ever be truly honest with one another, that this dance of ours will end._ But instead of giving voice to his thoughts, he offered her an out. He was growing as weary as she of the constant back and forth.

"Oh, I don't think you want to get into that." He'd expected her to let it go at his response. Instead, she raised her chin defiantly, a bit of the bold Laura he'd seen of late coming out once more.

"Try me." She dared, stopping in her tracks, turning to face him. _It's not as though all our avoidance has gotten us anywhere but back to the same place time and again_ , she thought. He stopped, turned to face her, arms still crossed, considered her carefully, then looked away briefly again before making up his mind and taking a moment longer to gather his thoughts, wanting to choose his words carefully, so that they would talk for a change instead of avoid or argue.

"Okay...Why do we always draw the line at the bedroom door?" Laura considered his question carefully, considered for a moment avoiding it, then chose to answer honestly.

"I don't know. I guess the timing's never been quite right. When one of us was ready, the other wasn't."

"But haven't we been avoiding it? Afraid of what comes after that magical moment?" Laura raised her brows at him, daring him, almost, to continue to be honest in their conversation.

"What does come after it?" _Do you leave?_

He shook his head sadly. "I don't know." _I know what comes after for me, what I don't know is if you will run, end us, avoid what comes after._ Laura nodded her head sadly, acknowledging his words.

"That's the scary part." He nodded, hummed his agreement before raising his brows and looking at her.

"But we're never going to know unless we take a risk."

"You mean let the chips fall where they may?" She asked in challenge, seemed to find the idea tempting.

"Be bold." He challenged back, a slight smile on his lips.

"Rise to the occasion." She answered, beginning to enjoy the moment.

"Up periscope." He upped the ante.

"You've convinced me." Laura told him, as she pressed herself forward, wrapping her arms around him, kissing him. He hummed with pleasure at the contact of their lips, his hand sliding up her back and into her hair as it continued. When they ended the kiss mutually, he considered her carefully, tasted her on his lips, before nodding his agreement.

"And you've convinced me." Laura ran her hands across the back of his shoulders, smiling up at him.

"Maybe this honeymoon will be a blessing in disguise after all." He nodded in answer, his arms that were wrapped around her keeping her close.

"There's just one slight problem."

"Naturally," she answered, with a frown, then waited for him to go on.

"With all due respect to the Hotel Del Amour, we've waited far too long not to capture the moment in a...more worthy setting." Laura considered his words for only a moment before agreeing.

"If Las Hadas has telephones, it must have other amenities," she suggested as her fingers played at the base of the back of his neck.

"I'll get the bags." He volunteered, smiling with anticipation at her.

"I'll check us out."

* * *

Escaping the Hotel Del Amour had proven as daunting at their trip to Mexico. When neither Steele nor Laura had pesos with which to pay the bill, they'd had to negotiate with the desk clerk: Steele would borrow the run-down, hotel jeep to venture to Las Hadas to get the funds to pay the bill while Laura remained behind as collateral. Bored, Laura had left the perimeter of the hotel, to find herself chased into the jungle by the Malvados. After being rescued by a beefy Italian archaeologist, she'd been knocked into the rapids, and then had had to chop her way through the jungle with said archaeologist to reach civilization in Las Hadas.

She was unaware that Roselli had paid the Malvados to chase her into the jungle so that he could play out the so-called rescue.

Steele, on the other hand, had also run into little luck, other than bad. After he'd missed a turn, he'd stranded the Jeep in a water pit, then found himself traipsing through the jungle on the way to civilization as well. When he'd finally arrived in Las Hadas, he was filthy and exhausted. It appeared his luck was on an upswing when he found a luxury resort awaiting there. But, of course, his luck did not hold. First, he'd discovered he would be unable to retrieve Laura until the next morning, a fact guaranteed to set her temper on fire, only to be followed up with the second problem: Norman Keyes vacationing at the same resort.

When he'd finally checked into his room, purchased some new clothes, showered and changed, he immediately called Mildred back in LA to let her know the outcome of her honeymoon purchase. He snacked on caviar while speaking with her, washing it down with good champagne. He released the call only when the bell on the villa he'd rented for he and Laura rang.

He was shocked to find a bedraggled Laura waiting on the other side of the door. A none-too-happy, bedraggled Laura.

"Laura! Hey. How'd you get through the jungle?" He asked, swinging the door open wide.

"No thanks to you, that's how I got through the jungle," she sniped, pushing past him without a word of greeting and tromping down the stairs into the living room.

He swung the door back open, shocked to find a man standing there. _What in the bloody hell?_ he wondered. _I leave her at the Hotel del Amor, and she arrives with Crocodile Dundee (Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, Rimfire Films, 1986_ ). _Terrible movie, by the way, yet somehow more enjoyable than I suspect this evening will be given Laura's greeting._

"Excuse me," the man greeted him, then pointed his thumb in Laura's direction, following her into the villa without invite. Steele watched him suspiciously, the hair on the back of his neck standing at attention, before glancing out the door to see if anyone else was following behind. Seeing no one else lying-in-wait, he closed the door, then went down into the living room of the villa to join Laura and the unknown guest.

"My jacket?" The man inquired of Laura. Laura looked down and only then realized she was wearing it. She pulled it off as she walked towards the man, while Steele continued to look on.

"Sorry." She told the man, handing him the jacket. Steele looked at Laura askance. _Can't leave the woman alone for five minutes before she's off running through the jungle and collecting strays._

"Clothing salesman?" Steele asked drolly, hitching his thumb towards the man.

"He's the reason I'm here." She answered Steele, her tone bordering on the side of becoming petulant. _It certainly doesn't seem that you were overly concerned at retrieving me from the Hotel del Amor_ , she groused in her head.

"Oh, in that case I'm eternally grateful Mr. um..." Steele began, his voice expressing anything but thanksgiving.

"I don't even know..." Laura began, then stopped to say somewhat wondrously, "...your name."

"Roselli, Anthony Roselli. But my friends call me Tony," he answered, but holding his hand out to Steele.

"Yes, I'm sure they do, uh, Remington Steele," Steele introduced himself. He sized Roselli up as they shook hands, his instincts warning him that the man was trouble.

"You wouldn't believe what we've been through," Laura explained excitedly. "First, I was chased by Malvados, then Tony... Mr. Roselli … fought them off, then we fell into some rapids..." Steele's head moved back and forth, considering both Laura and the man standing next to him, his demeanor becoming icier by the moment. _Ahhhh, wrong medium it seems. This is Laura's little show. I should have known it would be television. Tarzan (Ron Ely, NBC, 1966-1968) would be more appropriate it seems. Hideous medium, television. Lacks the je ne sais quois of film, much like this little scene playing out before me now._

"You must be very thirsty," Steele inquired of Roselli, purposefully interrupting Laura's account of her adventures. "Would you… um… would you like some champagne?" He offered, stepping into the living room proper, while rubbing his face in consternation.

"Do you got a beer?" Roselli inquired. Steele picked up the champagne bottle, twirling it in the ice for a moment, intentionally snubbing the Roselli, a fact that Roselli did not miss but found amusing. _So, another Butch Beamis, is it then Laura?_

"No," Steele said, the word clipped short, when he at last answered Roselli's query. Topping off his champagne flute with more bubbly, he disinterestedly addressed Laura. "Carry on, Laura."

"After the rapids, we cascaded over a waterfall, macheteed our way through the jungle, to some old ruins... they're called monuments here."

"Veritable _Romancing the Stone_ ," Steele commented coolly, while focusing his rapt attention on Roselli, laying his claim to Laura with the look, daring the other man to challenge him. Laura, for her part, drew in a breath of aggravation while rolling her eyes at Steele's movie commentary.

"What?" asked Roselli.

"Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, 20th Century Fox, 1985." Steele took a sip of his champagne, eyes still glued on Roselli. "Hmmm, would you like some fish eggs?" Steele offered, as Laura looked at him first astounded, that then turning to annoyance. She crossed her arms, looked away from him. _I show up at our honeymoon villa with another man and he's offering the man champagne and caviar. You have got to be kidding me! What the hell's going on around here? I feel like I've just stepped into an episode of the Twilight Zone (Rod Sterling, CBS, 1959-1964)._

"No, I never got a taste for those things." Roselli answered. "So tell me Mr. Steele, what brings you here?"

"I think I'll let Laura field that one," he answered. _I'll lay odds that my lovely wife didn't mention she was here on her honeymoon while the two of them were cavorting through the jungles and rutting around the ruins. Bloody hell, we've not enough problems right now?_

"That's another thing I forgot to tell you Tony," she began, then suddenly became very preoccupied with covering a cracker with caviar, while Steele moves her champagne flute out of the way before she can knock it over. "Um, Mr. Roselli... we are on our... ummm... actually we are" she took a big bite of caviar while straightening up, Steele holding out a glass of champagne to her. "Mmmm" she mumbled after a taste of the caviar. Steele mockingly nods and tilts his head behind here, clearly noting her reluctancy to share why they were in Mexico.

"Spit it out, Laura." Steele told her, his words short.

"Honeymoon."

Steele raised his champagne flute in a mock salute to Roselli.

"Honeymoon?" Roselli laughed. "I never would have guessed."

"Well from what you've both been through, you obviously didn't have time for any...small talk." Laura kept her back to Steele, while he stared at her as he answered Roselling.

"I mean no wedding ring," he clarified, pointing to Laura's hand. Laura looked down at her hand, surprised and thrown off balance.

"No wedding ring? Oh..." She began, only for Steele to field the unasked question.

"Actually it's at the jeweler's being sized." Laura took a step backwards, closer to where Steele now sat, nodding. "It belonged to my great-grandmother who inherited it from her Greek uncle, who came upon it while he was in Paris on a secret mission for the Grand Duke's nephew. It seems that Napoleon's tailor took this as a, a payment for..." Laura stared at him, exasperated, before interrupting.

"Alright, stop the history lesson, dear," she told Steele, laying her hand on his bare shoulder, patting it a couple of times. "It's just a gold band."

"Forgive me, Laura, I didn't mean to ramble on about the family jewels." The intentional innuendo did not go unnoticed by Laura, and she shot him a look of irritation.

"I'd better shove off," Roselli told them, backing out of the room.

"Why don't you join us for dinner?" Steele asked. "It's the least I could do for you salvaging my wife."

"No, he has to get back to the ruins." Laura rapidly interrupted.

"I thought they were called monuments down here, Laura," Steele corrected, his eyes still on Roselli.

"No matter what they're called, he _has to be going_." The comment was made pointedly to Roselli, hoping at least he would get the hint. _What is_ _he doing_ _? This is supposed to be our_ _honeymoon_ _. Remember? Let the chips fall where they may? Up periscope? But instead of wanting to spend time with me, you want to spend it_ _with him_ _?_

"I can always eat." Roselli

"Splendid." Replied Steele as Laura crossed her arms angrily, then huffed loudly. "Ten o'clock, the terrace?"

"You got it." Roselli answered, pointing his finger at Steele as he spoke.

"I look forward to breaking bread with you Antony." Steele offered his hand, and the two men shook, their hands in front of Laura's face as she watched, clearly angry.

"You too." Roselli replied before turning and exiting the villa.

Laura took several steps away from Steele before dropping her arms and turning to him.

"Why did you _invite him to dinner_? A simple _thank you_ would have sufficed." She demanded to know.

"I just wanted to hear all about your intrepid trek." He replied coolly. Laura remained oblivious to his anger, as she had throughout the time Roselli was in the room.

"Well," she answered irritably, while rolling up her sleeves, "It certainly doesn't look like you went through much getting here."

"Hardly used the Jeep." He responded cryptically. _Not that I'll tell you the truth of the matter, given you've already assumed the worst: that I'd been lounging about here indulging myself while you fought your way through the jungle with your...uh...friend._ He picked up the bottle of champagne, refreshing his glass.

"I'm in a jungle, fighting for my life, and you're here...swilling champagne and munching caviar." She told him angrily, then spun on her heel, heading to the patio doors. Storming through the door, she closed it firmly in Steele's face before he could exit. With a roll of his eyes, trying to keep his temper in check, he opened the door and followed her out. She turned, and walked back to Steele, planting her feet, putting her hands on her hips.

"I traipsed in here with Tony.."

"Uh, Mr. Roselli."

"What do you do? You offer him fish eggs." Offended, she walks away from him again.

"He looked hungry." Steele told her while following her, being purposefully obtuse, as Laura growled in frustration.

"Don't you think other men might find me attractive?" Even as she asked the words, her naked insecurity made her cringe. Usually very confident in herself, neither requiring nor wanting reassurance that he found her attractive, she realized that seeing him with Clarissa the day before had brought back to the forefront her old habits of comparing herself to Steele's normal type. _Hell, even the hooker is tall, voluptuous, glamorous… all the things I am not. Certainly she would have held HIM off for four minutes let alone four years!_

"Do you have anyone in mind?"

"Don't you think he was?"

"Was what?"

Laura clenched her fists in aggravation, knowing he was intentionally tweaking her, yet unable not to take the bait. "Attractive."

"I didn't notice."

"Well he was," she answered, rolling up her sleeves, continuing to walk the edge of the pool. "Damned attractive."

"Well, I'll take your word for it. You've always had a keen eye for that sort of thing you know." _I ought to know, Laura. You've a nasty habit of repeating yourself, bringing men round every time we've problems. Beamis, Westfield, the little display with Smith on the yacht. I'm getting damned tired of it, I tell you. You using men to make me bleed. I'll be damned if I give you the satisfaction this time around._ Laura opened the door to the villa and went back inside, closing the door in his face again. Opening it, he followed her inside.

"Laura, I don't understand why you're so angry. I thought I was excruciatingly pleasant to your guest."

"There we were, two incredibly attractive people…" she gave a flip of her hair "…alone together deep in the jungle, and you're not even remotely jealous."

"Alright, if it makes you happy, I'm jealous." He nearly cringed as he heard the lack of sincerity in his voice. While he most certainly was jealous, it appeared very fiber of his being was adamantly opposed to letting her know she had struck a blow in her appearance with the man.

Furious, leaned into his face and bit off "Too late" then spun on her heel to open the bedroom door.

"Laura, I'm very jealous Laura, you've got to believe me, I'm really..." His words were cut off when she slammed the bedroom door in his face. He stood at the door, scratching his chest. "Well...well I guess we're starting to act like a married couple."

He walked away from the door, taking a swipe at his hair, unable to say what had gotten into himself other simply having had enough of this particular ploy of hers across the years. He'd been baffled at first, seeing Roselli standing there at the door. The hair on the back of his neck had stood immediately on end, as a matter of fact. Yet, on thinking about it now, he recognized it was the moment that Laura had stumbled across 'I don't even know your name' that had set off his bizarre behavior. While he'd clearly gone out of his way to make certain Roselli knew Laura was not available, he'd allowed her to believe he was unaffected by the man's appearance in her life. Then, when she'd called him on his lack of jealousy, he'd...what... pandered to her? Mocked her?

Fact was, he'd had enough of her using other men against him. Enough to last a lifetime, at that. Over the years he'd watched her go stark raving mad, acting like a love struck teenager with that twit Beamis; had watched her allowing Smith, the murderous playboy, take liberties with her she'd never allowed him; had watched her board a plane to run off to Mexico with Westfield; and now this archaeologist. He supposed it did not help that Mexico was not only the place to which she'd gone with Westfield, but also the same place where he'd once watched her enjoying far too much, the ministrations of Dominic during another case. He recalled now, Mildred's words, as he'd stood watching Dominic run his hands over Laura's body, applying tanning lotion.

" _ **Just remember. It's easy to let yourself go with someone you don't care about. Because there's no risk involved."**_

 _That may well be, but I'm damned tired of watching her let herself go with anyone but me. We've enough to sort through at the moment without her adding another man to the mix. My God, if I'd done the same to her with women as she's done to me with men, she'd have ended us, for good, then and there._

The truth of the matter, however, was that he knew the signs all too well. She'd begun erecting the walls again, looking for reasons to shut him out. This time, he was not going to stand idly by and simply accept it, as he had in times past. No, this was it: all or nothing. There had been too many years of dancing around each other. Too many years of getting close, only to have it all taken away. He would fight this time - angering her when necessary, soothing her when needed. But he would keep her emotions on the edge, before she could shut them down altogether.

The one thing he would not do, however, was give her the pleasure of watching him injured by yet another man. No, it was well past time that Laura commit: either she wished to be with him, or any other William, Butch and Antony that came along. But she would make that choice not based on how much she could wound him, but on her decision on what mattered more to her: Him, or the other possibilities.

 _In the meantime, I'd do well not to let her sit in the bedroom and stew. Edge of her emotions is one thing; furious is quite another_. Opening the door, he walked into the bedroom, then stretched out on the bed, waiting for her to emerge from the shower. Only a few days ago, he couldn't help but note, he'd not have thought twice about walking into the bathroom, then enticing her into a shower together. But yesterday had changed all that, the question was for how long? Yes, they'd finally agreed to cross that line into the bedroom, yet he was not so foolish to believe that making love would resolve the issues that lay between them now. He sighed deeply. _One step forward, and now at least three steps back, and I've no one to blame but myself._

In the shower, Laura's temper was raging. It was bad enough that they'd had the worst trip, ever, down to Mexico. It was bad enough that their plans to get out of Hotel Del Amour to come here, to make love, had been sabotaged by the desk clerk. It was bad enough to be chased by the Malvados into the jungle then have to hack her way out with the Neanderthal archaeologist.

She'd been ready for Roselli to go on about this merry way. _An afternoon alone with the man had been enough, thank you very much. I was more than ready to be rid of him once we left the jungle. Yet, when he'd insisted on walking me to our room it had seemed the perfect opportunity to give back a little of what I'd had to take yesterday as I had to watch_ _HIM_ _kissing the hooker,_ _trying to marry the hooker_ _. But is he jealous? Noooooooooo. He asked the man to dinner! To dinner!_

 _Well, it would serve him right if something did go on between me and the beefy archaeologist._ She sighed deeply, admitted the truth to herself. _The problem is, I don't_ _want_ _anything to go on with the man. Why didn't it bother Mr. Steele that I showed up here with another man? Why didn't it bother him as much as seeing him with the hooker did me?_

She hated the insecurity that had been brought on when she'd seen Steele kissing Clarissa, standing at the altar with Clarissa. Yet another tall, leggy, buxom woman in his life. She hadn't thought much about the woman since the maelstrom of events started yesterday. But now, she had to wonder. Steele and Clarissa had seemed very...chummy... in their greeting yesterday outside the office, in her car. It did not appear, at all, to be the first time they had seen each other in more than a year, since their case.

Had they been seeing each other in the time since? At first she shook off the notion. Steele had left for London not too long after that. Since returning home, she and Steele had spent nearly all their time together, even extending that to nights. First two, then four. He'd hardly have time to imbibe in the hooker's services. Unless, on those nights he didn't spend with her, he sought Clarissa's services for... um... relief. Especially on those nights shortly after their return from Vail, when she had distanced herself from him. But he wouldn't have. He wouldn't have risked everything they were building together in order to relieve some sexual frustration. Would he?

She tossed her suspicion aside, remembering their time spent together instead. No, it wasn't a possibility. Had she relented he would have stayed every night with her by choice. He'd just risked everything out of desperation to stay in LA with her. He wouldn't have chanced losing what they were creating for a little relief. Especially after London when they both agreed to exclusivity. The man had his faults, but the one thing she did not doubt was that he wanted to be with her as much as she did him.

Turning off the shower, she climbed out and then toweled herself dry. Rubbing her hair with the towel until it was merely damp, she decided to leave it to naturally curl this evening. He particularly enjoyed it when she would allow her tresses to hang naturally. Pulling on her panties, she then slid her sleeveless, peasant style, pink dress over her head, before walking out of the bathroom. She paused when she saw him stretched out on the bed, apparently waiting for her, and in that instant remembered she was supposed to be angry with him. She turned on her heel, and walked rapidly towards the bedroom door. She made it to the living room before he caught up with her.

"Lauraaaaaaaa, come on now," he'd called after her and sprung up off the bed, giving chase. "Laura, Laura, wait, wait." He managed to reach out, grab hold of her arm before she made it back out onto the patio. "Ask me about my day. Since I left you at Hotel Del Amour." She glared at him, remembering again that while she was fighting her way through the jungle with the Neanderthal, that _he_ was sitting here in the lap of luxury.

"I think we've already discussed how your day went."

"Did we, now? Or did you merely make an assumption from the four words that I spoke of it?" He raised his brow in question. Laura pursed her lips, raised her own brows in challenge. _This should be good._

"How did your day go after you left the hotel?"

"Well, let's see. After I managed to sink the Jeep in a pit and waded through the muck to dry land, I hiked roughly twenty kilometers through bugs and vegetation before arriving in Las Hadas. The young woman at the front desk thought me to be an off-balanced miscreant, 'though I can hardly blame her given my appearance, and called the manager over, who thankfully had some passing familiarity of Remington Steele. I inquired after a taxi that would take me to fetch my lovely bride from the Hotel Del Amour, only to find that no driver is willing to travel after dark due to the Malvados. After I finally managed to secure the honeymoon villa for us, I had the honor of walking in said condition into the hotel 's boutique where I purchased clothes of questionable quality for the both of us, all the while being looked at askance by the saleswoman. I had only just managed to clean up, order something to eat, when my bride arrived, looking in a manner similar to my own disheveled appearance not much long before."

Against her will, Laura's lips twitched in amusement. "Honestly?" He grinned at her, then took a chance, putting his hands on her hips, drawing her forward into his arms. That she automatically wrapped her arms around his neck, gave him hope that the little matter of her believing he'd abandoned her to find her own way through the jungle had been put to rest.

"Mmmmm. I'm afraid so." He leaned down, brushed his lips lightly against hers before pulling back and looking at her again.

"For some reason, I find myself hoping you looked at least as bad as I did yesterday." She pushed herself up on her toes, touched her lips against his, allowing them to linger for a moment, moving away only when she felt his lips move under her own. He raised a brow at her playfulness.

"Worse, I believe. You at least had clean patches of skin on you here..." He pressed his lips against her neck, dared a little nibble, smiling when her arms tightened around his neck "… and there." Moving his head to the other side of her body, he ran his lips along her bare shoulder, his thumb brushing lightly over the goosebumps that dotted her skin in response. Lifting his head, he looked at her. Seeing the desire warming her eyes, he lowered his head, his lips finding hers, dancing across them seductively as he slowly backed them towards the couch. His teeth nipped at her lower lip playfully, before a tongue darted out to touch. As she opened her mouth to him, he lowered both of them to the couch, deepening the kiss once she was pressed underneath his body. At her hum of pleasure, his lips left hers, seeking the side of her neck, as a hand wandered up her side. Her hand captured his, then gave him a little nudge. With a sigh of acceptance, he pulled himself up off her to sit on the end of the couch then watched as she settled herself on the other side across from him.

"We have a while before we have to meet Roselli for dinner..." She began tentatively, trying to gage his mood.

"Mmmm hmmmm." He responded as he tried to assess where her mind had taken her.

"Maybe we should finish our talk from this morning?" She suggested, in the form of a question. Their plans to finish their discussion on the plane had clearly gone awry, but they could not avoid the topic forever. She watched the wariness seep back into his eyes, but he nodded crisply in agreement.

"Let's. Where shall we start?" _Best to get on with it, rip off the bandage if you will._

"There's the obvious topic of our...'marriage.' As Estelle so astutely pointed out yesterday, Keyes is going to push the INS to keep close tabs on us. We need to be prepared. There'll be interviews and spot checks, at the very least. Then, of course, we have to worry about whether the legitimacy of the various documents we've… ummm… manunfactured… will come to light." She'd watched him as she'd spoken, saw as he began to withdraw into himself as his stress began to mount, noting the swipes at his hair, the tug at his ear. Standing, she moved down to the end of the couch, then sat next to him, before curling into his side. She felt the shaky exhale of his breath at the contact.

"Go on," he encouraged her, his tension coloring his voice.

"Thankfully, we won't have much difficulty in establishing the validity of our personal relationship with the INS."

"Oh?"

"No. We'll simply provide the INS with a list of those that know about us. Monroe and Jocelyn to start, as they have spent considerable time with us, not to mention vacationed with us in Vail. Mildred, of course. Donald..."

"Donald?" He leaned down, and looked at her curiously.

"Don't play coy, Mr. Steele. We've both seen the knowing glances he's given us over the years. He's simply too polite to say anything."

"Well, certainly I have, but you never let on that you were aware."

"There didn't seem to be a reason. Donald keeps things close to his vest. He knows how Mother and Frances can be."

"Point taken, go on."

"Of course Claude can attest to the number of years we've been going to Chez Rive on dates, and Pierre can do the same. Then of course, there's Bernice..."

"Bernice?" The name earned her another questioning glance. This time, however, he watched her squirm a bit under his attention.

"Women talk, Mr. Steele."

"I see. I imagine my estimation in her eyes has only shrunk across the years then." He was unsure why it bothered him, but it did. Laura laughed next to him.

"Actually, you'd be shocked to realize that she's one of your more ardent supporters. She has been telling me for years that I need to take the risk, give you a chance... a fair chance."

"Hmmmm. Wish I'd known that when we attended her wedding. I'd have liked to thank her."

"All the better that you didn't then. Who else? Fred. He's seen far too much over the years to not be aware. Oh, my mother and Frances, of course."

" _They_ know?"

"I very much doubt that. But once they hear we're married, they'll claim they knew all along. If there's anything Mother and Frances both detest, it's people thinking they were out of the loop."

"Hmmmm. The next order of business then?"

"We'll need to move in together." She said the words with intentional smoothness, not wanting to elicit a response from him designed to meet her tone. He nuzzled her head with his cheek.

"Words I've been hoping to hear for a long time now."

"You have?" She was unsure why the words meant so much to her, but they did. Perhaps because they echoed her own thoughts the past several weeks that it was something she was prepared for with him although she had anticipated it happening further down the line.

"Do you have to even ask?" At his words, she realized that she didn't. He'd been hinting for months about making their time together more permanent.

"No." Unable to help herself, she lifted her chin to him, smiled as his head immediately descended, his lips brushing against hers several times before pulling away. Settling her head back down into crook of his shoulder, she rubbed her hand up and down his chest several times before taking a deep breath, preparing to speak, but he beat her to the punch.

"And now, Laura? Is our moving in together going to be a natural progression of where we've been heading this last year? Or simply a business arrangement?" His words were spoken calmly, but there was an underlying edge of tension that could not be looked past. She shook her head against his shoulder.

"I don't know." Her voice was tinged with melancholy. "I'm confused. I'm only just starting to figure out how I feel about everything that's happened."

"And how do you feel?" He asked the question, dreading the answer, suspecting he knew it before the words would ever be said. He felt her head tilt upwards, felt her eyes examining him as she tried to decide whether or not to answer. Felt when she moved her head back down, then nodded her head as though giving herself permission to say the words.

" Betrayed. You didn't come to me. Even worse, you turned to another woman for help, handing her your trust while you denied it to me."

"Laura, that's not the case at all..." He began, only for her to interrupt.

"I don't want to talk about this right now." She waved her hand emphatically at him and pushing herself off the couch, walked across the room, taking several deep breaths trying to rein her emotions in, but not before he'd seen the sheen of tears in her eyes, making his gut clench with guilt. _You, old sport, you did this to her, us. You knew there'd be a cost. If she needs time, you have no choice but to give it to her._

"Alright," he answered calmly, "back to the matter at hand then. Where do we live?"

Having collected herself sufficiently, Laura returned to where he was sitting, perching on the coffee table near him instead of returning to his side.

"Your place, for now, I guess, since you've already established that with Estelle. But we'll need to look into selling your apartment, my loft. Finding a larger place with room for my piano. Another bedroom or two." She watched the pain flit through his eyes at her words, the sharp nod of his head in assent to her suggestion. Unable to help herself, she reached out and squeezed one of his hands. "Don't read too much into that. I've already told you that I'd like to think we can work this out. That hasn't changed."

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and let it out. He looked at her then. "What else... for the INS?"

"I'm not concerned about our personal interviews. We'll pass those with flying colors."

"And the documents we've manufactured?"

"For now, we hope they don't try to delve into the legitimacy of them. In the meantime, we accept the possibility that we may have to marry again, officially this time, if we don't want you in prison or me to lose everything I've worked for. But, we don't worry about that, either, until the veracity of the documents they have in hand come into question, if they ever do."

The reality of her last words shook him to the core. When she'd agreed to help him, it was at his promise the marriage would be in no way legal. Now, there was a very real possibility that he wouldn't even be able to keep his word to her on that. He didn't want to be legally married to Laura. Not like this. Not unless they were married in every sense of the word. He lifted a shaking hand and ran it through his hair.

"I'm sorry. I never meant for it to come to this." She'd seen the tremor in his hand, the guilt filling the eyes that usually glinted with laughter, passion, love. She was drawn to him, needing to soothe his pain. Standing she slid back onto the couch, pressing herself against him once more, took his hand in hers and held it.

"I know." She spoke the words as their eyes caught, held. Without thought, she lifted herself up, straddled his lap, and wrapping her arms around his neck, pressed her hands against the back of his head, drawing his lips down to hers. The kiss was tender at first, both of them seeking the comfort of contact, but slowly deepened. When he broke off the kiss, it was to take her head in both of his hands, his eyes intense as they captured hers.

"Don't give up on us, Laura." Her hand reached out and stroked his cheek. The sadness in the brown eyes he adored tore at him. The guilt that his actions were responsible for it was overwhelming. Yet, even now, she continued to give him hope with her words.

"I don't want to. I want us to make it through this. Believe that."

He drew her lips back to his, his lips moving in a gentle dance of possessiveness. He deepened the kiss only when he heard her hum of pleasure, felt her small hands at the nape of his neck, her fingers playing in his hair there. When their tongues met, tangled, stroked, he stood with her in his arms, then slowly lay them both down until they were reclining on the couch again. Once they were settled, his mouth left hers, finding the tender skin of her neck. The need to taste her, touch her was overwhelming.

"We can't be doing this right now," she said to him on a light, lilting breath that ended in a gasp as his thumb brushed over her cloth covered nipple. He raised his head and looked at her, his eyes white hot with desire.

"Of course we can." He disagreed as he lowered his mouth to hers again. His lips pressed firmly against hers, her lips meeting his willingly, needing the contact as much as he. Teeth nipped, lips brushed, then tugged, a tongue teased, while fingers glided over her scalp, her neck, adding the sensual onslaught. Only when Laura was fully dazed by the kiss, did he allow his lips to roam freely once more, as they feathered their way down the long column of her neck, until his mouth settled at the hollow of her neck, his lips pulling gently on the skin there, while his tongue dared to taste.

" _You_ made dinner plans for us, remember?" Belying her words, her hands reached behind his back, pulling his tank out from under his belt, her hands seeking his skin. He pressed his growing arousal against her when her hands made contact with his flesh.

"The sodding tosser can wait while I make love with my wife," he murmured against her neck, his hands starting to roam again as his mouth moved to taste the freckles scattered across the skin of her chest.

"So you _are_ jealous." She commented smugly, her breath shortening into staccato gasps, when his hand eased down the collar of her dress, his lips claiming a nipple as soon as she was bared to him. Her hands skimmed across his flesh, along his sides, over his ribs, his nerves jumping under her hands at the contact, his mouth pulling more firmly on her nipple at the sensation that jolted throughout his body.

"I'm not jealous," he denied, releasing her nipple from his mouth while moving his hand to free her other breast from the dress concealing it. "I don't trust him." He clarified, as his mouth closed over the nipple, lathing it with the attention he'd already shown its twin. Something about the words he'd just uttered settled in his mind, and he stopped his attentions. Smoothing her clothing back over her, he stood up, began to pace.

Laura leaned up on her elbows, a stunned look on her face. "Uh, Mr. Steele? We were in the middle of something," she reminded him. Watching him pace, she gave up, sitting up with a huff of frustration. "Alright, what is it?"

"Laura, why weren't you at the hotel where I left you?"

"I was bored. I went for a walk. The Hotel Del Amour didn't offer much in the way of tourist attractions if you recall."

"Where you were accosted by the Malvados."

"Not accosted per se. Surrounded by, then chased would be more accurate. Why? What does it matter? I'm here… safe."

"And your archaeologist friend just _happened by_ at precisely that time?"

"He's not my friend, but yes."

"And you don't find it strains credulity a bit that this archaeologist just happened by at precisely that moment?"

"Why would I? I think you're reaching for something here that doesn't exist, Mr. Steele."

"Something's not right here, Laura. I can _feel it_. The hairs on the back of my neck," he motioned with his hands, "stood up the moment I laid eyes on the man." Laura rolled her eyes at him and stood, ignoring his glare when he caught her gesture.

"Instead of inventing excuses for not liking the man, why don't you just admit you're jealous... that your issue with the man is nothing more than not liking the fact I was trekking through a jungle with him?"

"Damn it, Laura, I don't dismiss your instincts lightly! Don't begrudge me the same respect!" Laura turned and shook her head at him.

"I'd respect you a lot more if you would stop denying what this is really about. I'm going to go finish getting ready for dinner now. We wouldn't want to be late, after all, to your little dinner party, now would we?" Without a glance back, she turned and walked into their bedroom.

Steele continued to stare at the doorway, long after she'd passed through it. _So now, she is so determined that I be jealous, she will not even offer the respect I've never denied her when those little hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention. Well, perhaps I simply need to give her what she has been demanding all evening: A display of jealousy, only not in the manner she's hoping for._

Matter decided, petulantly though it was, Steele walked across the living room and opened the bedroom door. He headed directly to the closet to pull on a shirt for dinner, feeling no need, whatsoever, to dress for the affair. He'd no intention of enjoying the meal, but every intention of irritating his blushing bride while feeling out the scoundrel that would be joining them.

* * *

He'd intentionally provoked Laura throughout the meal with Roselli, to that he'd admit. He'd openly expressed his alleged jealousy, insincerely of course, then quickly followed that up with an inquiry to Roselli, asking the man if he found Laura attractive. A hard kick in the leg had him wincing, but he'd plowed ahead, complaining about wives, earning himself yet another kick. Laura had upped the ante, of course, by engaging in sexual innuendo with the man, while fawning all over him. So far, Steele had two fresh bruises on a leg and one very angry wife to show for his troubles. Perhaps not one of his more intelligent moments, he had to admit to himself.

He found himself relieved when the wine steward approached the table, setting a pedestal bucket next to the table and presenting a bottle of wine that had been sent to their table. It was then that all the fun and games, painful though they were, came to an abrupt end.

"Compliments of the gentleman, Senor." The steward held the bottle of wine before Steele for his inspection, while indicating a hand to a place behind him. Steele turned to look at the person indicated while Laura did the same. They watched as Norman Keyes raised a glass in mock salute to them.

"Keyes?" Laura asked Steele, shocked. "What's he doing here?"

Steele wiped his mouth hurriedly with a napkin, then stood. "I'll handle it". Grabbing the bottle of wine out of the steward's hand, he walked briskly towards the table where Keyes sat where he put the bottle of wine down with a resounding thud.

"What's the matter, Steele? You don't want my little gift?" Keyes asked, brandishing one of his trademark cigars in his hand. Steele glared at him.

"It's like you, Keyes, bad vintage." His voice was hard, to the point. He was fed up with the man and his intrusions on their lives. The fact that it was Keyes who had started the INS debacle, leading directly to the current unrest in his relationship with Laura only fueled his anger.

"Tell me something, Steele, is it strictly a business deal between you and Holt?" He asked, giving Steele a wink. " Or are you getting a little on the side?" He smiled sleazily at Steele, intentionally pushing his buttons.

"You just don't know when to quit, do you, Keyes?"

"You know, she ain't a bad looking broad in the right light. If I didn't have anything better to do... I wouldn't mind having a go at her myself."

Steele's temper erupted into a blazing inferno. Just the inference by the swine that he'd enjoy his hands on Laura's body chased all rationale away. Reaching over, with a flick of his hand he knocked Keyes wine into his lap, then when Keyes stood slammed a right hook into the man's jaw, sending him plummeting over the railing into a pool as Laura and Rosselli looked on from their table nearby.

"Guess he didn't like the wine," Roselli commented and he and Laura jumped up from the table heading towards Steele who was currently being corralled by hotel security. Steele, looked at Roselli, asking for a translation as the guards spoke to him.

"They want you to go with them."

"I'll go too," Laura insisted.

"Keyes has just gone for a little swim. Finish your dinner, relax," he told her, as he was being hauled away. Laura looked conflicted, but stayed with Roselli when he reached out and gripped her arms.

"Just give him a chance to cool off, he'll be alright," Roselli told Laura.

"Let's get out of here," Laura told him, pulling on his arm.

She and Roselli departed the restaurant and headed towards the beach below.

* * *

After a lengthy interview with hotel security and the hotel manager, Keyes was unable to be located in order to press charges and Steele was released. Not before, however, the manager warned him to stay away from Keyes to which Steele replied "Keyes had better stay away from me." He headed back to the restaurant, and finding both Laura and Roselli gone, began his walk to the honeymoon villa he and Laura were sharing.

* * *

Laura strolled down the beachfront, Roselli by her side. While she had initially been unimpressed by the man she was unsure if it was her anger at Steele's refusal to admit he was jealous of the man, or simply that Roselli offered no complications, but in either regard, she found herself enjoying the company of the man.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Roselli asked. Laura glanced at him, considered the notion for a moment then dismissed it.

"It's another _long_ story."

"I've got time," he shrugged.

"Look, you don't have to babysit me Tony. I'll be fine, really. And so will Mr. Steele."

"You call him Mr. Steele." It was both a comment and a question laced with curiosity.

"He used to be my... boss."

"But now he's your husband."

Laura smiled and looked away. "Old habits die hard."

"I guess so."

Laura turned, looked towards the villa, clearly dreading returning there. She turned back to Roselli.

"I know I've already said it, but thanks..." She held out her hand to the man "For everything."

Shaking her hand, he pointed a finger at her. "Stay out of trouble."

Laura grinned at him, then pointed a finger back at him, before turning and walking away.

* * *

Steele opened the door to the villa and immediately saw the body of Keyes lying on the living room floor, a broken lamp beside his body. A quick check revealed the man's head had been bleeding and that he was currently deceased. Given the threats he had made against Keyes and the altercation in the restaurant, Steele had no doubt that he would be charged with the man's murder, should his body be found there. With Laura nowhere to be found, Steele decided to act on his own, hauling Keyes body out of the villa and taking it down to one of the tents on the beach to hide.

Hotel security caught him in the act and he was arrested on the spot for the murder of Norman Keyes.

* * *

Laura paced the floors of the villa. She'd arrived back at the unit to find it swarming with hotel security and the police, gathering evidence in the murder of one Norman Keyes. Of course, it was Steele being accused of the crime. She'd been interviewed by the police endlessly. 'Were you aware, Senora Steele, Senor Keyes was a guest at the Hotel del Amour only a day prior to your arrival? Were you aware, Senora Steele, that Senor Keyes was a guest here prior to your check-in? Were you aware, Senora Steele, that your husband and Senor Keyes had a confrontation in the hotel lobby here earlier this evening? Were you aware, Senora Steele, that your husband threatened to kill Senor Keyes?

 _Damn him. How could he keep this from me? He hadn't been at all surprised to see Keyes tonight at dinner. He'd already known the man was here. Not only that, but he'd already had a confrontation with Keyes before dinner this evening. And exactly what was that display tonight? Yes, Keyes had acted very Keyes-like by sending over the bottle of wine, making sure his presence was known. But to send the man over a balcony wall? It was only luck that the pool below had kept the man from being killed. Then what?_ She gave a very unladylike snort. _Then he would have been arrested for the man's death. Not much different than what's happened now._

When her interviews had been completed, she'd insisted upon seeing him, only to be dismissively informed that the local constabulary would not permit visits at the jail until morning, no matter the circumstance. So she'd been left, alone, to pace, unable to sleep.

 _What had he been thinking to try and hide Keyes body? Why didn't he come to me? Yet again, he chose to act without me and once again the cost was too high._

She tried to ignore the niggling voice in her head. The one that kept pointing out that if he'd come to find her at the restaurant, he'd not have found her there. The one that kept pointing out that as he'd been arrested and hauled off to jail, she'd been strolling a beach with Roselli. The one that kept pointing out that if she'd accompanied him to the manager's office after he'd decked Keyes, as she would have in the past, then he'd have been with her and he would not have needed to confront the situation alone.

She shook away those thoughts, moved on to the next, which were no more conducive to her finding sleep than the last. He'd been out of sorts during dinner tonight, of that there was no doubt. She could not recall a time in their years together where he had intentionally gone out of his way to barb her repeatedly, to embarrass her repeatedly in private, let alone in front of a guest. Yet, with the vast exception of the time after their verbal slaughter of one another at the sensitivity spa, she also could not remember a time where he had tightly held on to his anger either. No, her Mr. Steele, unlike herself, normally shed his anger like an uncomfortable suit choosing to return to his naturally upbeat state. But not tonight. He'd not only worn the anger, but had embraced it fully. If she were to be honest with herself, and she was being exactly that, she had not helped matters in that regard, intentionally making overt sexual innuendos and all but drooling over their guest. She'd intentionally provoked him in exchange for him provoking her.

How much had that played into Steele sending Keyes into the drink below? How much had that played into whatever had happened in here tonight? As she walked past the blood stain for the umpteenth time, she shivered.

Could he have done it? Could he have killed in Keyes?

She didn't know. Had it been anyone other than that man, her answer would have been a resounding no. Steele was not prone to violence. Yes, he routinely used his fists to subdue a suspect, but she could not picture many situations in which he would allow his anger to turn homicidal. Except two, both of which had happened nearly three years prior: the second time DesCoines had appeared in their lives and Anna.

The first time DesCoines had appeared, framing Steele for murder, he'd threatened Steele's freedom and by virtue of framing 'Remington Steele,' the agency that Laura had created, nurtured, loved. Steele had been panic driven during that time, but not at any point homicidal. He'd considered cutting out in order to spare the agency, despite the fact that it would mean losing Laura in the process. He'd chosen flight over fight when it had been only he at risk. It had only been a few short months later that DesCoines had reappeared, this time promising that they would both be dead by noon of that day. Steele had attempted to drown DesCoines that day, considered ending the man's life. The only difference between this confrontation with DesCoines and the last was that this time the man had threatened her life as well. She'd long suspected that was the root of Steele's rage on that occasion.

The situation with Anna, as loathe as she was to think of the woman, only solidified those suspicions. Once again, in the case with Anna, Steele had believed a woman he cared for was being threatened, and was prepared to end the threat, permanently if necessary. In fact, that evening when Steele confronted Merleau, it was not until Merleau had shot at Laura that Steele had fired his weapon for the first time.

It was in his nature to protect her at all costs. She knew that, and often worried that one day his protective instinct towards her would cost him more than they were willing to pay.

It was this fact that was at the center of her thoughts when she considered if Steele may have killed Keyes, not intentionally, certainly, but perhaps during the course of a confrontation. His anger had already been piqued that evening by her own actions - taunting him about being jealous of Roselli, dismissing out of hand his insistence that his instincts warned him to beware of Roselli. When you coupled that with the fact it was Keyes himself that had started the avalanche of events that had resulted in Steele's desperate acts to stay in the country, to stay with her - acts that in the end threatened the foundation of all they had been building - the possibility that he had killed Keyes in a rage became all too real.

How? How, how, how had he let things get to this point? This, all of the events of the past two days, could have been avoided if he'd only come to her when the INS first came calling. There would have been no attempted marriage to the hooker, that now left her questioning what other arrangements he'd had during the last year with the woman. There would have been no hasty, illegitimate marriage between she and Steele. No honeymoon in Mexico. No Roselli. No confrontations with Keyes. No questioning if all they had become to one another over the course of the last year was nothing more than a lie.

She and her Mr. Steele should be at home right now, in the wee hours of this Sunday morning, wrapped in one another's arms as they slept. In a few scant hours, he should be luring her awake with the tantalizing smells emanating from the kitchen. Afterwards, they should have been planning how they were going to spend the day ahead with one another. They should be happy and, she admitted reluctantly, wrapped up in the love for one another both were still too afraid to confess to.

Instead, he was in jail and she was here... alone.

He had done this to them. Him. His choices. His actions. His refusal to trust her.

The anger that she'd been battling to squelch for two days, rose to the surface, covering her being like a festering wound. And as she lay in bed that night, alone, her anger only intensified. By the time she saw Steele in jail the next morning, that anger would lead her to say things she'd never believe herself capable of, things that would damage the foundation that had sustained them through Cannes, through London, but might be incapable, afterwards, of sustaining them any further.

(To Be Continued)


	4. Chapter 4

Steele knew before even seeing Laura that the tentative threads holding them, their relationship, together the last three days had evaporated like water in a tea kettle long forgotten atop a hot burner. As he had paced his small cell throughout the night - not that it took much effort as four steps in any direction ended at a set of steel bars - he'd battled against the eerie sense of déjà vu that had overcome him. For many long hours he was reminded of another cell in which he had sat, falsely accused, while his instincts clamored that Laura's faith in him had waivered. The critical difference between that time and now was as unmistakable as it was ominous in its portent. At the time of the Cranston debacle six months prior, he and Laura had been happy, content as their relationship had continued to bloom. Even more importantly she had felt more secure in their relationship than he had ever seen her. So while, yes, her faith had waivered for but a moment, that newfound security had carried her, brought her to him when he was released so they could work through it. His admission of how much their being together meant to him along with his reiteration that he was not going anywhere, had only strengthened them further.

Yes, it was a critical difference. Now, there had been too much that had happened. The foundation - their friendship - that had sustained them through the roughest times of their on-again-off-again relationship - had taken too many blows in too short a period and was disintegrating beneath their feet. If he'd learned anything across the more than four years Laura had been a part of his life it was that she needed time. Time to adjust to changes; time to forgive; time to heal after she'd been hurt; time to understand missteps; time to gain perspective. And there had been no time in between events: her discovery at the Little Chapel of Perpetual Hope; learning he had not come to her about the INS investigation; their sudden marriage; the disastrous start of their honeymoon trip; her trek through the jungle with the archaeologist; Keyes showing up in Mexico; his arrest.

He watched the sun rise, then as it continued to ascend in the eastern sky as the early hours of the day passed. By mid-morning, sitting on the dirty cot, his back against the wall, shoulders slumped, he'd resigned himself to the truth: that Laura had not showed the moment the jail allowed visitors said it all. _No,_ he corrected himself, _that Laura had not shown last night demanding to see me had said it all. I just didn't want to believe it. In her head she's written us off once more, and perhaps me altogether._

For the first time in the all the years he'd known Laura, his faith in her began to waiver.

The guard's keys jangled, the door to the hall housing the cells squeaked open, and Steele heard the soft patter, that he'd long ago memorized as the sound of Laura's footsteps, approach his cell door then stopped. His mood bleak, he didn't watch as she neared, or he would have seen by the swing of her arms, the slight pause in her steps, that she did not want to be there, resented being there. He didn't need to see her to know any of this. He had known she would show, would have no choice to show, for after all he was the face of her Agency and it would not do to have _her_ Remington Steele convicted of murder, involuntary or otherwise. Had it not been for that fact alone, he had little doubt she would have simply washed her hands of them, of him, and been on a plane heading for LA at this moment.

"Are you all right?" She asked as she centered herself in front of his cell door, hands grasping the bars.

He remained with his back against the wall, legs drawn up in front of him on the cot, chin in his hand, head averted. "Mmm-hmmmm." He slapped at a mosquito that buzzed past his face. "You wouldn't happen to have that mosquito netting handy, would you?" He turned his head to look at her, but did not move from where he was sitting. He assessed her frown, the lack of warmth in her eyes, the distance that she had shoved between them so clear.

"What happened?"

"What happened?" He sighed, knowing the answer really didn't matter at the end of the day, and held his hands upwards in frustration before dropping them. "Do you want the official version or the truth?" He watched as Laura let go of the bars, crossed her arms.

"I've heard the official version."

Steele chuckled morosely, a smile of frustration on his lips. "Well, they're both painfully similar..." He stood up from the cot, at last, and with a glance down the corridor continued as he approached her. He assessed her response as he spoke. "...except for one minor detail. Keyes was already dead when I found him." He hoped against hope that she would believe him, support him, have faith in him. Instead, he saw only anger resonating in her eyes, upon her countenance.

"Why didn't you call someone? The police, the hotel manager."

"And tell them what? That the man I knocked off a fifty foot balcony had the audacity, the bad manners, to expire on my floor?" His response was riddled with frustration, his sarcasm abundantly clear.

"It might have been better than being discovered trying to hide his body in a tent on the beach."

"Remind me not to hire you as my defense attorney." He told her, wagging a finger towards her, before turning away from her.

"Did you know he was at the Hotel del Amor the day before we arrived?" That caught his attention.

"Keyes?"

"It appears as though you've been following him across Mexico!"

"That's why our travel plans changed," he mulled thoughtfully. "Huh." As the pieces began to fall into place, he rubbed a hand across his neck.

"Why don't you have a name?!" Laura suddenly screeched at him, her anger boiling over with no provocation. Steele was stunned by the question, could do little but mumble a single word in reaction as he stared at her unable to fathom that she would ask the question. That she would choose this - the thing that had haunted him most throughout his entire life - in order to attack was beyond his comprehension at the moment.

"What?" His voice was sharp, stunned. He stared at her as though he no longer even knew who she was.

"I feel like a fool calling you Mr. Steele or Remington at a time like this. Why don't you have a real name like everybody else?" Her voice was full of venom, fury showing in her eyes. He looked away from her, before glancing back at her, saddened, yet letting her know he knew exactly what she was doing.

"If ever there was a time when we needed to be completely honest with one another this is it," she continued, her mouth tight with anger. "There were many a time when I wanted to kill Keyes myself with my bare hands."

"But you didn't." He made eye contact with her, his gaze holding steady. "And neither did I." When it was clear she didn't believe him, he could tangibly feel his faith in her disintegrating.

"What I'm trying to say is..." her voice calmer, but anger still painting her face, her body. "...I'd understand if he goaded you past the point and you couldn't control - "

"I didn't kill Keyes!" His voice rose insistently. Laura looked away from him, wiping her brow with her hand. When she looked back at him, her anger had not lessened, and they engaged in a silent battle of wills, before he looked away from her, rubbing his face.

"Now, the first order of business is to get me out of here so I can prove it."

"No chance. I've already checked."

"I'm not going to sit in this jail and watch them build my gallows outside, Laura." His voice bordered on desperate.

"Then do a little praying. You can start by praying I'm as good a detective as I claim to be." Her voice had lost a bit of its edge in response to his fear. He in turn looked away, his frustration evident. He returned his gaze to her, studied her for several long moments, then shook his head resignedly. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned and walked away toward the back corner of his cell, where he leaned against the wall, averting his eyes once more.

"Then I guess you should get on with it." His dull voice no longer held the joie de vive, humor, or even the flippancy that was so characteristic of who he was. Laura stood studying him for several long moments. Then with a shake of her head, turned to leave.

"I'll stop back by to fill you in as soon as find something."

"Mmmm." He acknowledged her wordlessly, then shook his head morosely as he watched her leave. Laura never even so much as glanced back as she departed.

Left to his own devices, he began his frenetic pacing once more. _I've got to find a way out of this cell. There was a time not long ago when I'd not leave my fate in the hands of another. It's looking like that time is once more upon me._

He stretched his long frame across the small cot, rolling up his shirt and sticking it under his head as a pillow then began assessing various means of escape that could be accomplished solely on his own. While he'd no doubt that Laura would do whatever it would take to prove the innocence of her, the Agency's, Remington Steele, he pessimistically concluded that it would be up to him to save the hide of his.

* * *

Laura quickly concluded her first order of business was to search Keyes' room for any clues to his death that might still remain. Before she could act on her plan, however, she was pleasantly stunned by the unexpected arrival of Mildred at the hotel. Laura quickly brought Mildred up-to-speed on Keyes' murder and Steele's arrest, before giving the secretary and investigator-in-training direction to find out every case Keyes had been working at the time of his death. Mildred enthusiastically headed into the hotel, determined to uncover anything that could help clear the Boss.

Roselli, who'd made it a point to attach himself once more to Laura's side, happily agreed to provide a diversion for the Federale guarding Keyes' room, allowing Laura the opportunity to gain entrance. While there were few clues to be gained, Laura did determine by virtue of a hair brush that Keyes had had company during his stay at the hotel, and ultimately left Keyes' room heavy one letter in which Keyes had claimed he felt his life was in danger at Steele's hands.

* * *

Mildred, beside herself with concern for Steele, quickly gathered the data on Keyes' cases then departed for the jail to see the Boss. When the guard opened the door entering in the hall by his cell, Mildred frantically rushed forward.

"Boss," she called out to Steele, her voice riddled with concern. Steele pushed himself up on his elbow on his cot, clearly shocked to see her. He watched her, a bit baffled, as she continued to speak. "Oh, Boss. Oh, Boss, you look awful. You're all haggard and pasty and... your right eye is twitching." Steele glanced away, almost amused at her assessment of him.

"It's good to see you too, Mildred. Now why are you...why am I seeing you here... I mean in Mexico?" He asked as he pushed himself up to a sitting position on the cot.

"I can't find Miss Holt." She smiled briefly remembering. "I mean Mrs. Steele. She asked me to dig up all the cases that Keyes was working on."

"And?"

"The only case he was one was yours," she told him with eager concern.

"Well, uh, at least the man's consistent." Raising his hands in exasperation, he finally rose from the cot to join Mildred at the bars of his cell.

"Oh, ho ho ho, it gets worse. Keyes raised his insurance by one million bucks. He said he was afraid of what you might do to him." Mildred's eyes widened as she imparted the information on Steele dramatically.

"Oh, great Mildred. Thank's for stopping by," he told her flippantly, taking a step back away from the cell door and dropping his head. _I don't know how much more good news I can take on the day._ Mildred regarded his discouraged visage with concern.

"Oh, Bossss," she near crooned, "Don't confuse the message with the messenger."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He apologized to her immediately upon hearing the hurt in her voice. Swiping his hand through his hair, he blew out a deep breath. A thought formed and he shook his finger towards Mildred, as he became the picture of studied concentration. "Someone's made it appear that I followed Keyes from the Hotel del Amor to Las Hadas. But I didn't even _see_ " his brows rose in pointed emphasis on the last word "Keyes at the Hotel del Amor and we weren't even supposed to _be there_ " his brows raised again as frustration colored his voice and person " _in the first place_!"

"Oh, which reminds me. I found out who switched your travel plans."

"You did? Well, why didn't you tell - Never mind. Never mind. Captain?" He clapped his hands enthusiastically and called out down the hall. Captain!" The captain entered the hall walking towards Steele's cell as he spoke to Mildred again. "If someone switched those plans, that proves I wasn't following Keyes." He brushed his hair back off his forehead, overwhelmed with relief.

"Good point, chief. But I don't think -" She tried to forewarn him.

"Hold up. Hold up. Hold up. Captain, your honor, sir," he smiled at the constable, "Senora Krebs here knows who's trying to frame me for the murder of Norman Keyes. Go ahead Mildred, tell the man." Mildred looked at him worriedly. " _Go ahead Mildred_ , tell the nice captain who switched our plans," he urged her when she didn't speak.

"You did." She looked at him apologetically as she said the words. Steele clapped his hands in triumph before he realized what she had said.

"You see, Cap-…" He stopped talking, looking at Mildred in disbelief while pointing at himself. "I did?"

"Well, that's what the travel agent told me."

"I switched the plans?"

"You have just supplied this missing piece to the puzzle," the captain interrupted, pleased with the new information.

"I have?" Mildred cringed.

"Si. Now I know Senor Steele's plan was premeditated. You've made it possible for me to upgrade the charges from manslaughter to first degree murder." Steele stood dumbfounded, unable to believe what was happening. Muchas gracias, senora," the captain smiled gleefully before turning and walking away.

"Oh, Boss, I tried to warn you." Mildred was beside herself with guilt.

"I know you did, Mildred. I know you did. I know you did." He leaned back against the bars, head bowed in defeat. You've got to get me out of this place, Mildred or else I'm carne muerta," he told her, looking up at the ceiling, almost hopeless.

"Carne muerta?" She queried.

"Dead meat."

"But Boss, if they wouldn't let you out on bail before, they definitely won't now!" Mildred fretted.

"I know, I know. But I'm not talking about walking out the front door, Mildred. I have a plan." He turned and looks at her, his eyes pleading. "Will you help me?"

"Chief, what's going on here? Where's Miss Holt? I mean Mrs. Steele. Why isn't she figuring out a way to get you out of here?" She paused, when she saw a look of hurt, resignation, and frustration cross his features all at once. "Why do they think you killed Keyes? What's been happening down here?"

"Ah, Mildred, it's a rather twisted, Draconian tale I fear." He rubbed the back of his neck as he began to pace.

"Tell me, Boss." Her hands gripped the bars so hard her knuckles turned while. Her antennae for trouble were standing straight up by now, and not because of the murder charges, though those were more than enough cause for alarm.

"I'm afraid Miss Holt's not quite in my corner on this one, Mildred." With a sigh of frustration, he tossed up a hand, the hand slapping across his thigh when it came down.

"Oh, Boss, that's not true. There's no way Miss Holt...I mean Mrs. Steele... would ever believe that you could do something like..." He interrupted her, his words sharper than he intended.

"She told me as much, Mildred. She stood right there where you are now and told me she believes I lost control and killed him!" Seeing the crushed look on Mildred's face, he took a deep breath, softened his voice. "I'm sorry, Mildred. I didn't mean to yell at you." Seeing her relax, he sighed deeply, then shoved his hands in his pockets and began to pace again.

"Did something happen between you and Keyes?" She eyed him assessingly. A glance at her, and Steele knew she wouldn't rest until she pried the answers to her questions from him. His shoulders slumped slightly, before he took a hand from his pocket and swept at his hair again.

"I punched him, sending him off a balcony in the process." He made the admission with some hesitancy, hoping that Mildred would not also abandon his corner upon learning that detail.

"Good for you!" She smiled widely before sobering again. "Why?" She watched as he walked to the barred window, looking out as he began worrying his thumbnail. She waited patiently, then when it became clear he'd no intention of answering, drew herself up to her full height, the tough IRS agent taking over. "Why?" The one-word question was terse, brooked no argument. He glanced at her, clearly torn.

 _Regardless of where Laura and I stand now, I don't want her knowing of what Keyes said. It'll only emphasize her fear that she will always be viewed as little more than flesh by some, if for no other reason than she married 'the boss.'_

Mildred changed tactics again, seeing his angst. "Boss," she spoke softly, "what happened?"

He looked at Mildred again, then shook his head. He'd never been able to deny her when she looked, spoke as she just had.

"Laura's not to be told a word, understood? It will only... upset … her." She gave him a glance that told him he knew better. She'd been the keeper of their secrets for years now, and as far as she was concerned, the question should not have even been posed.

"Give."

He exhaled gruffly, then walked back over to where Mildred stood, keeping his voice low, so as not to be overheard. The last thing he needed was to give the Federales even more circumstantial evidence against him.

"Keyes asked if Laura was providing me with any...uh... 'action' on the side, and then … um... suggested he wouldn't mind..." He stumbled, struggling to speak the distasteful words. He cleared his throat, and then forced the words past his lips. "Bloody hell, Mildred, he said he'd like to have a go at her!" Mildred's eyes widened in disgust at his words.

"That no good, filthy rat. That slimeball! No wonder you decked him. I swear, if that man wasn't already dead, I'd throw him off a balcony myself. Well, good for you Boss!"

"No, not good for me, Mildred. All I accomplished was helping give our good Captain more proof of my alleged guilt while validating Miss Holt's belief I'm capable of what I've been accused."

"I don't believe for a second that Miss Holt... Mrs. Steele... thinks you killed that low-life. She's out there right now trying to prove you didn't."

"She's out there trying to clear the 'name' of the mythical head of the agency Mildred. Not me! We're well and truly over this time I think. The mere fact that she thinks me capable..." He broke off, shaking his head, then dropping it.

"That's not true, Boss! She cares for you..." He held up his hand wearily, cutting her off.

"Cared, perhaps, but it seems that's...changed."

Mildred's mouth rounded into an "o" at his words. "She said _that_?" she asked him in a stunned voice.

"Well, no, not in _those_ words. But she put it simply enough when we were at the Hotel del Amor, wanting to know why we don't just give up and go our separate ways. She made it clear that she wants nothing more to do with me, us, when she said what she did here today about my..." He broke off his words with a shake of his head - his failure to complete his thought, the shake of his head alerting Mildred instantly that he'd intentionally left something important out. He turned and leaned a shoulder against the bars, swiping at his hair again while gazing sightlessly out the window. "I've no one to blame but myself for that. The whole bit with the INS, not telling her... Clarissa... us ending up married instead. I thought since she'd volunteered it would be okay, we'd be okay." He laughed sardonically. "I've really made a mess of things this time, Mildred. Would've been smarter just to let myself be deported." He shook his head, then shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, Boss, don't say that." Mildred exclaimed sadly, his obvious heartbreak tearing at her. Reaching through the bars, she touched his arm to offer comfort. He shook her off, took a step away, before turning to look at her intensely.

"I may well deserve to lose her for what I've done, Mildred. But this?" He swept his arm out, to encompass the cell. "To have her believe me capable of taking someone's life, no matter how loathsome they are?" He huffed in a combination of indignation and disbelief. "To sit in jail for something I didn't do? To possibly spend the rest of my life in prison?" He turned to face her earnestly, his hands gripping the bars of the cell tightly as he leaned on his arms. "Mildred, I have to get out of here. I need at least a fighting chance to prove I didn't do this. Please... _help me_."

Mildred considered his plea for only the briefest of moments, then squaring her shoulders asked, "What do you need me to do?"

He all but sagged with relief that at least Mildred still stood squarely in his corner. "Here's the plan..."

Three hours later, with the help of a length a rope, a boat and his faithful partner in crime, Mildred, Steele committed his first ever jailbreak. He might be on the lam, but at least he was free, for the moment, to take his fate in his own hands and prove his innocence.

* * *

Mildred was just hanging up the phone in Steele and Laura's villa, when Laura returned, with Roselli in tow.

"Where have you been?" Mildred asked Laura almost frantically. "I have seen more of Mexico than Pancho Villa trying to find you."

"Well-" Laura began, as she extended a hand in Roselli's direction.

"Who's he?" Mildred interrupted.

"Tony." Roselli smiled and held out his hand to Mildred as he introduced himself. Mildred gazed at his hand as though it were a snake that might sink its fangs into her. Roselli, spying Conchita at the back door to the villa, was immediately distracted.

"Don't you come with a last name?" Mildred asked, impatience ringing in her words.

"Roselli. Tony Roselli." He glanced away from Mildred and directed his attention towards Laura. "Uh, do you mind if I wash up?"

"Help yourself," she told him. He began to walk away to find Mildred had no intentions of letting go of his hand. She gave him a tug and he moved back towards her.

"Don't you want to know my name?" she asked.

"Yeah, but I wanna be clean when I hear it. Don't go away." Roselli answered lamely, then yanked his hand free to intercept Conchita before she could reveal herself to Laura and Mildred. Laura and Mildred both watched while he walked away, finding his answer a bit odd.

"Where did you find _him_?" Mildred asked Laura.

"In the jungle."

"What was he doing, swinging from a vine?" Mildred asked sarcasm oozing across the words.

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"Does the Boss know that you're hanging around with a road company Tarzan?..." Mildred demanded to know angrily. Laura blithely ignored her question.

"What have you found out about Keyes?"

"…while he is languishing away in a Mexican jail?" Mildred continued.

"Mildred, the business at hand," Laura reminded the older woman sharply, earning an insulted look from Mildred and only pricking her curiosity further.

"The business at hand can wait." Laura was stunned by Mildred's tone and the content of what she had said. _Since when does she tell me that business can wait? Is she forgetting that I'm her employer?_ Laura was piqued but knew better than to even make a comment along those lines.

"Alright, Mildred. Let's hear it. I can see we're not going to get anything accomplished until you tell me what's on your mind." Laura tapped her foot impatiently, wanting to focus on the case, but knowing that Mildred would only be distracted until she got whatever was bothering her off her chest. Mildred's eyes narrowed further at Laura's near-dismissive attitude.

"What are you _doing_ , Miss Holt? I mean Mrs. Steele." Laura gave a little huff of irritation at the question.

"I'm trying to find out who killed Norman Keyes. Remember... Mr. Steele... 'languishing away in a Mexican jail cell'?"

"I don't know what you said to the Boss, Miss Holt...I mean Mrs. Steele... but there he was sitting in that jail cell, alone, knowing that you believe him capable of killing Keyes." Laura had the good grace to grimace at the other woman's words. "Oh, I know the Boss has his faults and he plays his games... you both do... but that man is no more capable of killing someone than you are. And for you to _say_ otherwise to him..."

"I was angry." Laura offered lamely, knowing her words were insufficient.

"Well, you made your point, didn't you? I won't even pretend to know what else you said to him but it must have been a doozy, because that man is not only hurting, he's _given up_. He believes he's fighting this all on his own. What did you say to him, Miss Holt?... I mean Mrs. Steele," Mildred demanded to know.

"Stop it with the name thing. Miss Holt will do." Laura bit off the words irritably, annoyed at the guilt that had surged through her at Mildred's words. She moved several steps away from Mildred, her fingers finding her left brow. She hadn't planned to say what she had to Steele, but couldn't deny she'd been looking to wound. By her own admission, it was a nasty habit of hers, well-honed through the years, to use words to prick him, make him bleed a little, when he hurt or agitated her in some way. She was used to him allowing most things to roll right off his back, often accompanied by a knowing pursing of his lips, even as his eyes registered that her little zingers had found their mark.

 _I was embarrassed last night when Tony asked why I call him Mr. Steele._ Laura sighed deeply. _The truth of the matter is, Tony's question just reminded me of one the big issues still lying between me and Mr. Steele. For months he has been asking me to call him Remington. And I've tried. But even though I only think of him whenever I hear the name 'Remington Steele', to embrace that is who he is, who he has become... Would be to give up one of the last walls between us._

Laura turned and faced Mildred, then turned away again unable to look at the other woman when she told her, unwilling to see the shame she knew would be reflected in Mildred's eyes. Steeling herself for the other woman's reaction, Laura all but blurted out the truth. "I asked him why he doesn't have a name like everyone else. I told him I feel like a fool calling him Mr. Steele, Remington."

"Oh, Miss Holt... Mrs. Steele... _how could you_?" Mildred was aghast.

"I know... I know, I know, I know!" Laura threw her hands up in the air, began to pace. "I was angry" she offered again "It just came out."

"Well, it's no wonder..."

"No wonder what, Mildred?" Laura snapped.

"That he's finally given up on you. That he wishes he'd just let himself be deported!" Laura felt her heart drop to her toes at Mildred's words. She took in the other woman's angry words that were laced with a modicum of disgust, and guilt coated the heartache.

"He said that?" The modality of her voice indicated how stunned she was. No matter what she had done in the past - with the sole exception of when she'd left him the year prior - he'd never once given up on them, her. In fact, he hadn't even given up then as he'd left to find a name to give her.

"Can you blame him? Especially after everything he went through to stay here with you? Yeah, he made some really foolish choices, what with trying to marry that Clarissa and all. But he did it all for you! And what does he get in return? 'I was angry.' It's no wonder he thinks you are out here just trying to clear the 'face of the agency' and not him. Oh, Miss Holt, I never would have believed I could be as ashamed of you as I am right now." Mildred turned her back on Laura and slumped down on the nearby couch.

Laura covered her eyes with a hand, her shoulders sagging against the weight of everything Mildred had shared. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I do what I do sometimes. I just get so...so... mad." Mildred turned and assessed the younger woman, and seeing the guilt written across Laura's face, softened.

"Oh, honey. I have spent years watching you shove the Boss away every time he would get too close or would make a mistake. I don't pretend to know why you do what you do, but I honestly thought that after London you had finally realized how many women would kill to have that man, any man, care for them as he does you. Hell, the way you dressed me down a few months ago for the things I had said to him, the way I was acting, I thought you had finally claimed what he's been trying to give you for years."

"Oh? And what has he been trying to give me all these years other than a headache?" Her response was flippant, self-protective. The last thing she was up to was taking on more guilt than that which was already weighing her down. Her answer yielded another look of exasperation from Mildred, along with a shake of the other woman's head.

"Him. But if you haven't figured that out by now, you never will. Maybe the Boss was right," Mildred stood and shrugged her shoulders. Laura laid her head against the back of the couch and rubbed at her brow as she looked at Mildred wearily.

"Right about what, exactly."

"To give up. Stop fighting. Maybe you are trying to clear him because he's the face of the agency and nothing more." Mildred turned her back on Laura and grinned craftily to herself.

"Mildred, you know that's not true!" Laura protested.

"Do I? Or more importantly, does he? The Boss has spent years looking at your actions, despite your words. Maybe he finally decided just to listen for a change. And if that's the case, what do you think that means after the things that have been said the past couple of days?" Mildred turned to leave the room, heading into the main living area. "If you'll excuse me, I find myself suddenly in need of a drink."

Laura watched after Mildred, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. _Oh God, Laura, what have you done?_ she asked herself. _Do you really want him to leave? Do you want it to be over?_ Realizing her answer to both of these questions was a resounding no, she took a deep breath and let it out, then stood to follow Mildred to the other room. First order of business was clearing their Mr. Steele, then after she would have to find a way to clean up the mess she'd created in anger.

(To Be Continued)


	5. Chapter 5

There is a significant amount of text, direct from the show, in this final chapter as well. However, as I continue on in future episodes it will thankfully dwindle down until there is little to none.

* * *

(Chapter 4)

After evading capture in the jungles outside the jail, Steele made it back to the villa. Climbing over a wall by the pool, he made his way into the bedroom. He not only did not seek out Laura on his return, but did his best to walk stealthily down the hall in order to avoid her. Entering their bedroom he froze in his tracks upon finding Roselli standing there. Steele looked the man over from head-to-toe, stunned to realize that while he'd been all but rotting in a cell, Laura had clearly chosen to keep company with the other man.

"Antony, isn't it?" Steele asked, with a raised brow, his voice cold.

"Still is." Roselli answered cockily, sitting on the bed almost as though it was his intent to irritate Steele.

"Acquired a taste for the fish eggs, have you?" Steele asked sarcastically, as he walked into the closet and began stripping his shirt and tank off.

"I thought you were in jail."

"Yeah, I bet you did."

Laura wandered in from the hallway. "Tony I thought I heard..." She paused, eyes widening as Steele emerged from the closet, bare chested, a clean tank in his hands. "Mr. Steele!" Steele looked at her blandly.

"Mr. Steele?" Roselli asked, once again pointing out Laura's odd habit of calling her husband by his formal name.

"She's always so formal when we have guests," Steele drawled as he pulled the tank over his head, barely even glancing at Laura but giving a Mildred a small smile when she entered the room.

"What are you doing here, Boss?" Mildred asked in surprised.

"Jungle got a little crowded, Mildred."

"How did you get out of jail?" Laura asked.

"We, uh, made a back door." His answer was intentionally vague. Not only was he still stinging that it had been Mildred not Laura that had helped free him, but he had no intention of sharing the details of his jailbreak with Roselli.

"Didn't we agree that I would do the investigating?" Laura asked, her tone slightly haughty. Steele allowed his eyes to rest on Laura, his gaze detached. _No, we didn't agree. You dictated and expected me to fall in line._ The words were left unspoken, but Laura knew what he was thinking by the look he gave her.

"Remember those gallows I was talking about? Well, they're up." He answered coolly, as he pulled on a black shirt, leaving it unbuttoned but rolling the cuffs. He eyes shifted to Mildred, his face warming. "Did you find out who Keyes' beneficiary is?"

"Yeah," Mildred answered eagerly. "It's his niece. She's supposed to be coming down here. Her name's..."

"Danielle Scribner," Laura interrupted.

"How did you know that?" Mildred asked, as she and Laura had never completed talking business a few minutes earlier.

"She's already down here to claim the body," Roselli filled in.

"That's one expeditious niece," Steele noted.

"If she really is _his_ _niece_ ," Laura told him, pointing her finger for emphasis.

Their conversation was interrupted by the unexpected arrival of the police, there looking for the escaped Steele. Hidden unceremoniously under the bed while Laura and Mildred provided the police with false information on his alleged plans to head to the Hotel del Amor, he was distracted when he noted his very voluptous companion underneath the mattresses. _As a betting man, I'd be wager all the chips in front of me that she belongs to that bugger Roselli and that Laura is unaware she has had, err, company beyond just the man in here._ Only when the police were dispatched did Steele come out from under the bedding, sitting next to Roselli when Mildred and Laura stood.

"The maid service around here is deplorable..." He stared at Roselli, who was waiting to see if Steele would sell him out. "You wouldn't believe the lint under this bed." Roselli smiled at Steele, shocked that the man had covered for him and wondering why. Steele turned his head, uninterested in the man's gratitude or amusement.

"We haven't got much time," Laura began. "Now, we all agree that the so-called niece killed Keyes for his insurance, right?"

"Right, but how do we prove it?" Mildred asked.

"If she claims the body today and flies home, forget it." Roselli pointed out.

"In that case, how are you at grave robbing, Antony?" Steele inquired. _Better to keep the enemy close at hand..._

"I'm an archaeologist, remember?"

"Uh-huh. How could I forget?" He turned his attention to Laura, pointing at her. "You'll have to detain the niece until the funeral home closes, Laura."

" _Beverly Hills Cop_." She chimed in with a satisfied smile.

"Who?" Roselli asks, confused.

For the first time since his arrival, Steele looked at Laura and engaged with her, proud of her idea. "Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, Paramount, 1985." He told Roselli, before returning to Laura. "Excellent, Laura. A couple of well-placed bananas ought to decommission her car..."

"So that Tracy Lord can come to the rescue," she smiled at him, "...and chauffeur her wherever she wants to go."

"And get hopelessly lost..."

"Aren't they great together?" Mildred enthused, looking pointedly at Roselli. "I'd hate to see anyone try to mess with this team." She raised her brows at Roselli, making sure he understood she was telling him to back off. Roselli smirked in answer to Mildred's warning.

* * *

Steele departed for the funeral home with Roselli in tow, while Laura headed towards Keyes' villa, bananas in hand. Their plan went fairly as expected although, as it typically occurred, the results were not quite what they had anticipated. After suffering through Roselli's lack of finesse at kicking open the funeral home's door while he'd been attempting to pick the lock, Steele had been initially stunned to realize Keyes' body had already been cremated. While at first it appeared as if their plan to catch Scribner had fallen apart, the cremation of Keyes and his time spent with Roselli had yielded two critical clues.

First, when Roselli denied to Steele any knowledge of the woman hidden underneath Laura's and his bed, Steele's suspicions of the man only solidified. _Why are you spending so much time with a married woman, when you clearly are already entangled?_ Steele wondered to himself. The coincidental arrival in the jungle, that happened to be in just the nick of time to save Laura; the man's continued presence at Laura's side when he was allegedly in Mexico on a dig; the man's fascination with the relationship between Steele and Laura; and now the woman hidden under the bed? _N_ o, _my instincts about the blighter were accurate from the start. Now the only question that remains is: what's his game?_ Roselli would bear watching as long as they remained in Mexico around the man.

But, even more importantly, was what the discovery of Keyes' cremated remains meant to the case - and Steele's freedom. Steele, Laura, Mildred and Roselli gathered in the living room of the villa to discuss the matter. Steele stood with his hands buried in his pockets, pacing, while considering what he now believed to be true.

"It was there all along..." He began, nodding his head towards the urn. "...right under my nose the whole time."

"What are you smelling, Chief?" Mildred asked, open admiration for Steele shining on her face, as she watched him from her position on the couch.

"Keyes faked his own death, the way Barry Fitzgerald did in _And Then There Were None_ ," he told Mildred confidently.

"But you saw him dead," Mildred pointed out.

Laura's head shot up at his words, and she looked at Steele with a gleam of wonderment in her eyes. "The Devil's Playground..."

"Precisely," he acknowledged, pointing at her when he spoke.

Roselli leaned towards Mildred, struggling to keep up with the information passing between Mildred and Steele, Steele and Laura. "These two have a hell of a code."

"And I pity guy who tries to crack it," Mildred replied, brows lifting in warning. Like earlier in the day, Roselli simply smirked in response.

"A few years ago, Tony, we had a similar case where a so-called victim feigned her own death by using the drug digitalis leaf," Laura filled him in.

"The proper dosage would've slowed Keyes's pulse and heart rate to the point where only a perceptive doctor could tell he wasn't dead." Steele had picked up where Laura left off, their ability to continue one another's thoughts unaffected by the strain between them.

"That slimeball!" Mildred exclaimed.

"He changed our travel plans," Laura realized, looking at Steele. "He wanted to make it look as if you were following him..."

"And then he staged enough public confrontations to give the police all the motive they needed to arrest me for his murder." Steele grew excited, pointing as he spoke. It was clear that Laura finally believed he had not harmed Keyes and even more importantly, that they would be able to find the evidence they needed to exonerate him of the charges.

"That lowlife slimeball..." Mildred uttered.

"Enter his accomplice, who made it look as if Keyes had been cremated." Laura further explained, while pointing to the urn.

"Which makes it absolutely impossible for anyone to prove he isn't really dead." Steele concluded the summary, while sitting down on the couch, and crossing his legs, his hands providing emphasis to his words.

"I love it when they're on a roll," Mildred grinned smugly at Roselli. Roselli stared at Laura and Steele, clearly puzzled, not sold on the theory.

"All this because he thought your marriage wasn't legit?"

Laura took a deep breath, leaned into the side of the chair she was sitting in, unwilling to provide additional details of their history with Keyes. "Among other things," she responded vaguely.

"Such as a two million dollar insurance payout," Steele smoothly provided another motive.

"Plus the twisted satisfaction of know that Mr..." Laura stopped speaking abruptly, as she realized she was about to use 'Mr. Steele' again, "... Remington was rotting in a Mexican jail for a murder that never was."

"That slimy, lowlife slimeball," Mildred decreed angrily.

"Redundant, but accurate Mildred." Steele affirmed.

"Well, believing Keyes is still alive is one thing. Proving it is another kettle of fish." Laura appeared discouraged by what could be a dead end.

"Piece of cake." Steele said confidently, a wicked smile on his face. Mildred tapped Roselli on the knee.

"He's got a plan. Lay it on us, Boss."

"All we have to do is force the niece to make contact with Keyes," he pointed out, looking at Laura for backup. "And then we have him."

"Exactly how do we do that?" She asked him, sinking back into the couch, finally relaxing for the first time since they'd arrived in Las Hadas.

Steele nodded towards the urn. "We arrange for the urn to end up in the so-called niece's villa. When she sees it, she'll suspect someone is onto their scam and make contact with Keyes. Mildred can monitor any calls in and out of the room, and once the niece leaves to meet with him," he slaps his hands together, "we follow and conveniently arrange his miraculous return to the police here in Las Hadas."

"Well, then, what are we waiting for?" Laura asked. "I know the sooner we end this scheme of Keyes and see him behind bars, the happier I'll be. I've had enough of that man and his interference in our lives."

Steele nodded silently for a moment. "Antony, would you mind playing lookout while Laura and I..." he lifts his brows "return Ms. Scribner's... 'missing'... uncle to her?"

"Not at all." Roselli readily agreed.

"Mildred," Steele told her, pulling out his wallet and handing her the cash contained within, "… do whatever you need to in order to convince the night clerk to allow you to monitor calls coming in and out of Scribner's villa."

"You got it, Boss," she agreed enthusiastically, then got up and took her leave. Steele, Laura and Roselli followed shortly behind, Laura keeping the urn securely tucked against her body, ready to implement their plan.

* * *

They had believed Scribner would make contact with Keyes immediately upon finding the urn in her villa. They were sorely mistaken. After planting the urn on the entryway table, where Scribner would be unable to miss it on her arrival back to her rooms, Roselli departed for the evening, while Steele and Laura positioned themselves on the opposite side of a low-lying wall where they had a clear view of the villa's door. Minutes, ticked by, then hours with no movement, whatsoever, made by Scribner.

Laura and Steele sat huddled near one another in the bushes on the other side of the wall, one or the other of them glancing periodically over the wall at the still-quiet villa. The silence between them was both rare and deafening, emphasizing the distance the events of the last three days had created between them. Laura had spent a good portion of the night considering her words from the morning before, words said in anger, words meant to hurt. She glanced at Steele repeatedly as the hours passed. He'd made it a point to keep his head averted, making it clear he didn't wish to engage. Despite the way they had easily interacted earlier as they'd ferreted out the details of Keyes plan and came up with a ploy to flush their quarry out, that ease was an earmark of their partnership - that portion of their relationship that always remained strong despite their problems in... other areas.

Laura shifted her position, turning her back towards him a little more, as she lay the side of her head against the wall behind her. She almost couldn't recall how long it had been since she'd had a sound night's sleep, then laughed silently, nearly mockingly, at herself. _You know exactly when it was, Holt. Monday night, a full week ago now, before everything began to fall apart._ Despite the fact they had not engaged in any... explorations … of one another after he'd put her off that Saturday night, they had still finished out their long weekend together, simply enjoying being in one another's presence during the day then falling asleep wrapped around each other at night. She realized now she should have recognized something was wrong when he'd begged off of their Thursday night together - the start of their long weekends - claiming Monroe had a crisis and needed a friend. But she hadn't. She'd been disappointed, but had taken him at his word.

Now she acknowledged to herself that he would not have allowed them to spend the night together on the eve of his wedding to the hooker as that betrayal would have just been another to add to the heap of transgressions to come. At least he had not violated the sanctity of their time together by continuing ahead with it after having made the decision that marriage was his only way out of his deportation dilemma. There was some comfort to be found in knowing that, she realized.

Laura shifted positions again, this time turning completely around until she leaned her other side against the wall, so that she could watch him. Feeling her eyes on him, he glanced her way, did a double take, then averted his head once more under the guise of looking over the wall again towards the villa they had under surveillance. She sighed deeply, then flipped to her other side again. Closing her eyes, she shook her head.

 _Mildred was right,_ she realized. _There's no anger, no regret, no hope that we can reconcile all that's happened. He's simply taken himself away._ Her fingers reached for her brow and began to rub.

She recalled the look on Mildred's face when she'd admitted that she'd demanded to know why he didn't have a name like everyone else. She couldn't remember anyone looking at her with that much shame since her mother had discovered her crawling in her bedroom window at sixteen years old, her clothes in disarray, bearing a hickey on her neck. The night she'd had sex for the first time in the backseat of a dirty, smelly old car with a boy she didn't care about. Her way of acting out in defiance of her father leaving. She gave an unladlylike snort. _Even then I was my own worst enemy when I was hurt, angry._

But this, what she'd done today…had said to him? She couldn't remember a single time in her life when she'd been cruel to someone else. Let alone overtly, intentionally cruel has she'd been with him. She'd hurt him with her words in the past, she knew this very well. She'd hurt him with her actions in the past, she knew this too. He was so accepting of her 'prickly personality,' as he'd referred to it in the past, that he seemed to just let her barbs roll right off his shoulders. In an instant, forgotten about. Just like that. Only in a few rare instances, had he allowed the words to really sting and she'd realize she had gone too far.

Hell, even Murphy had stood up for him during the Marcall case. Murphy, who'd battled Steele for her affections. Murphy who didn't trust him. Murphy who resented his very presence.

 _ **"Murphy, I think I'm hearing things." Laura had said, turning to look at Steele pointedly, letting him know his input was unwelcome. Steele had parried on anyway.**_

 _ **"It seems to me that it's simply a matter of rounding up the suspects, presenting them with the wine in question, and then seeing who will-"**_

 _ **"Go back to the part where you're not a detective." She'd told him dismissively, not watching as his back had stiffened in response to the insulting tone she'd used.**_

 _ **"Yes," he'd said, while getting up and heading towards the door. "Why don't I run along, then? Let you honest to goodness detectives get down to the business at hand. What was the name of that wine again?"**_

 _ **"St. Jacques du Par, 78," Murphy had told him before Steele gave him a curt nod and left the room.**_

 _ **"Oh, I did it again, didn't I, Murph?" Laura had frowned towards the doorway through which he'd left.**_

 _ **"What's that?"**_

 _ **"I came down on him a bit hard. Don't you think?"**_

 _ **"You're asking me, Laura? I'm one of those people who believe with all my heart you can't be too rich, you can't be too thin, and you just can't come down too hard on that guy. But uh yeah, I think you did."**_

That Murphy had acknowledged the harshness of her words had spoken volumes. Yet even that didn't compare to the things she'd said to Steele only a little over two months ago at the Sensitivity Spa.

 _ **"Well, then, get out of here! What are you waiting for?!" Laura had screamed at Steele.**_

 _ **"That's a damn good question!" He'd yelled back, equally angry at the accusations she'd hurled his way in the minutes before.**_

 _ **"Well, go on, get out! I was better off without you anyway!"**_

She'd regretted the words almost as soon as they had left her mouth – deeply regretted. But that was the problem with words that were already spoken… you couldn't unspeak them, you couldn't make them unheard. In the course of a single argument she'd accused him of only being after sex, had mocked his commitment to her, and had told him she was better off without him. She'd never seen him as hurt as he'd been in that moment – not even when she'd ended them, catapulting them into four months of hell when he'd taken off for London rather than to endure yet another separation. What had really terrified her though was the fury. She could not recall a single time in the nearly four years they'd known each other when he'd been so furious with her. Her words had not simply rolled off his back that time. No, it had taken days for him to even speak to her again about anything other than business.

She'd been ashamed of herself then. Had vowed to herself she would remember that he could be wounded, and wounded deeply by her words. Had promised herself that she would take more care to watch her tongue when she was angry or hurt.

Then today? Her fingers moved more furiously against her brow.

 _I was cruel and meant to be. For two years I have watched him try to find that one most basic thing to which everyone is entitled: a name of their own. But not him. He'd not only been denied a stable childhood, a safe home, but that very elemental thing that gives everyone their identity… a name. I saw his disappointment in Ireland then again in England when he'd hoped he'd finally found the answer only to be let down again. Even worse, I can remember the words he said to me after I found him in London._

" _ **But when it seemed our time together had come to an end- I realized that Remington Steele was just another name I had borrowed. And if I was going to give it back, I should have to replace it with something that was truly mine."**_

The memory made her heart ache, as it had then. Before then she'd never even really considered that he'd seen the name she'd given him as so retractable, his ownership of it under her arbitrary control, to give and take at will. And why wouldn't he see it that way, she'd asked herself then. For years she'd hammered him about his 'real name.' Hell, on the streets of Cannes, only a day before she'd ended them for the first time, she had made a point to callously remind him, 'You don't have a name good, bad or otherwise! I gave you your blasted name!' Of course he'd see it as retractable… she'd made sure he had.

She'd promised herself after London that she'd no longer use his name against him. Yet, she'd not even made it a month before she reminded him during the Cramer case, that his was a name bestowed, not owned. 'If you're so concerned with your name, which incidentally I gave you…'

She shifted positions again, now sitting with her back fully against the wall, her head leaning against it, eyes closed, as she continued to ponder. _Why did I do it? Why did I use his name, of all things, against him today? Is it because his lack of a true name is one of his few insecurities?_ At the sound of a sigh coming from him, she turned her head to watch him and found him, head bowed, toying with the grass beneath him. Boredom? Or something else? He was giving her no clues to work with. She closed her eyes again.

 _Yes_ , she admitted to herself. _Outside of ending us, which I'm not prepared to do, I used what would hurt him the most. I wanted to wound him. As I've been trying to do since we arrived in Mexico. First with the bit about walking away, then Tony, and then dismissing his instincts as trivial. When none of those cut deep enough, I went in for the kill. A little payback for what he's done._ She felt tears prick at the back of her eyes, shook them off, laughed morosely instead. _Well, Holt, congratulations it was effective. So effective that you've managed to accomplish the one thing you never wanted: he's given up on you._

 _Now what?_

With that last thought and against her will, she fell asleep.

* * *

Time. There was that theme again. Five hours, the amount of time expired as they made their way from Los Angeles to Mexico. Time during which they'd been unable to talk as planned, leaving Laura's dexterous, analytical mind to its own devices, to pick at her wounds until they left her raw. Four hours, the amount of time they'd been separated from one another after he'd left her at the Hotel del Amor to find his way to Las Hadas. Time for Roselli to insinuate himself into her life, for Laura to convince herself he'd left her to her own devices while he sat in the lap of luxury, living it up. One minute, the amount of time it had taken Keyes to incite his anger. Time during which he'd lost control, sending the bugger off the balcony. The blink of an eye, the amount of time it took for Keyes's body to fall from the tent and land at the feet of the police. Time enough to watch his life, his freedom, circle the drain. Thirty seconds, the amount of time it had taken Laura to remind him why this, them, would never work. Time enough to realize that the man with no name, the man with the shady past, would never measure up to her standards, no matter how hard he tried.

Time was a cruel master, indeed. One could neither control its passage nor the events that transpired as it ticked by.

Or lack of events, as the case may be, such as it was in the seven hours that had passed while they'd waited for something, anything to occur at the Scribner villa. The lack of activity had left them to pass that time lost in their own thoughts. A very dangerous place to be lost of late, he acknowledged.

He resisted the urge to sigh in frustration, instead adjusting his back, sitting up a little straighter against the wall to relieve the kinks that were forming. Their uncomfortable accommodations were made even more so with his determination not to look at her, not to turn in her direction where the wisp of her scent would be captured by his senses, where he might see those amber colored eyes that he could get lost in. It was already difficult enough to endure each brush of her body against his when she shifted positions next to him.

He glanced at his watch, did sigh this time. Nineteen hours ago he'd decided that they were well and truly over. The moment she'd yelled at him, demanding to know why he didn't have a name like everyone else, had told him she felt like a fool using the only name he owned – well, borrowed – he'd realized that there was no point in continuing to fight for them. That she had used against him the thing that was both the most profound regret of his life and his greatest insecurity had spoken volumes of what he was to her.

 _She knows,_ he reminded himself now, _she knows how I've tried to find my name, as much for_ _her_ _as for me. She's bloody well been by my side as I've searched. She was there in Ireland, where that lead ran dry. She was there when I discovered I was not the son of the Earl, but more likely the son of the thief that had stolen his watch. I've nowhere else to look. I've foolishly believed that she understood. But her words today say it will always be between us, my lack of a name, to be used to wound at will, to always serve as proof that no matter how much I've changed for her, it will never be enough._

He felt her shift next to him, knew the moment her gaze settled on him. He could not help but glance, then look away again, only to glance back as the regret in her eyes registered in his mind. He forced himself to look away again, knowing that he was powerless when it came to those amber eyes. He peered over the wall behind him again, saying a short prayer that this time he'd see the door open, see Scribner emerge. Of course, his luck held. Sadly, his luck had all been bad of late, and like time that remained consistent now. No movement. Their time here would carry on.

He felt Laura move next to him again. Knew, without even looking, that her hand was at her brow, worrying it. He'd felt her tension building as she sat next to him, as clearly as if she'd been in his arms. _Another problem with time,_ he thought, _it allows some to weave their way so deeply inside of you, that you know every nuance of their movements, know their thoughts before they are even spoken._ He shook his head, admitting the truth to himself. _Not some, just one. Laura._

 _Time. A millisecond, in which our eyes had met that first time. Time enough for me to know that something of significance had just occurred. That my life was going to take a turn I'd never expected, was not sure if I was prepared for. Three weeks, the amount of time between that first glance and the first time I felt her lips under mine. A lifetime of waiting it had seemed then, as I'd never before needed to know the taste, the touch of a woman as I did her. A heartbeat, the length of time our first kiss lasted. Time enough for me to realize that this, between us, could never be a simple liaison from which I could walk away._

 _Three weeks, the time I had to turn to her, to include her after the INS had come calling. Time that used wisely, could have prevented where we are now._

He dropped his head, picking at the grass between his legs as he absorbed the truth that no matter the blood she'd drawn that morning, he still hadn't had enough time with her. He was no more capable of walking away now than he'd been a week ago… a year ago… more than four years ago. It would be up to her to decide if she wanted to commit herself to the time that they would need in order to mend. The one thing time had not taught him, was how to walk away from her and what they were meant to be. Time, however, had taught him that his choices came with a cost and her anger was the cost to them now.

He heard her soft sigh next to him, the one that told him when she would give in to sleep. Turning to look at her, he saw her head leaning against the concrete wall, her neck crooked in a way that would guarantee she'd wake up aching. Without conscious thought, he shuffled himself over, until he could wrap his arm around her. She woke briefly, eyes dazed with sleep, forgetting for a moment the chasm between them. She nuzzled her head on his chest, tucked her body into his, then let sleep sweep her away once more. He closed his eyes briefly, allowing himself a moment to experience the relief of having her in his arms.

 _Time. It's all we need. Time to forgive and heal._

Opening his eyes, he sat back and waited for the movement at Scribner's villa that would hopefully lead to Keyes's and the proof of his innocence.

* * *

Shortly after the break of dawn, Laura woke. Instinctively, she immediately raised herself up to peer over the wall towards Scribner's villa. Seeing there had been no activity, still, she sat down rather dejectedly while slapping at a mosquito.

"She hasn't moved." She noted, squeezing beside Steele while he yawned.

"Well, at least we can say we were up all night on our honeymoon." He replied, trying to infuse a little humor into the morning. Laura lifted her head and looked at him, resisted the urge to shake her head at his poor attempt of a joke. A rustling of the bushes nearby drew both of their attention and the watched as Roselli appeared, bearing two cups of coffee, handing one to each of them.

"Thanks." Laura acknowledge, removing the top and taking a sip.

"Anything?"

"I think she's sleeping in." Laura answered him ruefully, as Roselli took a moment to peer over the wall before settling back down on his haunches. Next to her, Steele opened his coffee and looked into the cup without enthusiasm before focusing his attention on the other man.

"Do you mind if I ask you a personal question, Antony?"

"Depends."

"I know I can speak for Mrs. Steele when I say we enjoy your company immensely, however, - haven't you got any other friends?" Steele took a sip of his coffee, while blithely ignoring Laura's glare. Roselli gave Steele an amused smile, knowing full well he was making reference to Cochnita. Not for the first time, he wondered why Steele had not called him on his discovery yet.

"I'm not due at the dig for a couple of days. But, if I'm in the way here-" As he moved to leave, Laura grabbed at his arm.

"No, no. Not at all. My husband is just trying to thank you for your generous help- _in his own unique way_."

"Oh." Tony responded, while both his attention and Steele's attention were drawn to the rustling of the bushes on Steele's other side. Mildred appeared next to him.

"Boy, this is one crowded bush."

"Mildred, why aren't you manning the switchboard?" Laura asked.

"Because the niece called for an airport taxi. She's heading back for LA." Her news is greeted by a frown from Steele.

"Piece of cake, huh?" Laura asked Steele. "She's going home!"

"Every plan has a flaw." He answered her off-the-cuff, trying not to let his worry show.

The four of them turned to watch as a taxi pulled up in front of Scribner's villa. The front door opening, the woman emerged, carrying the urn.

"Why is she using a taxi," Steele wondered aloud, "When she can use Keyes' car?"

"I hate to admit it, but that's a good question." Laura acknowledged.

"Maybe she's just a decoy." Tony suggested.

"Or maybe Keyes is waiting for her at the airport." Mildred gasped at the possibility.

"Okay. You two follow the niece." Steele directed Roselli and Mildred. "Mrs. Steele and I will keep an eye on the car."

* * *

The events over the next hours seemed to unfold in a flurry of unexpected events. Mildred, with a little bit of cunning on her part, had managed to delay Keyes's niece at the airport when she swiped the urn containing Keyes's 'remains' and claimed, vigilantly, that they belonged to her. With a little help from an unexpected corner, Roselli, both Mildred and Scribner were detained by the local gendarme until the issue of ownership could be resolved.

In the meantime, Steele and Laura had watched representative from the car rental office arrive at the villa, pack the 'dead' man's luggage in the trunk and drive away. Swiping one of the hotel's golf carts for their use, Steele and Laura followed the rental vehicle to where it was dropped off in front of a stunning, waterfront mansion. They'd both immediately confirmed the pungent smell of Keyes's favored cigar wafting through the air of the home when they entered. Still, there was no sight of the man, and Steele had all but give up on this route of investigation when Laura spotted Keyes's running down the pathway that wrapped around the house to the beach below.

They'd given chase, complicated by their need to dodge bullets being showered around them by the police who were determined to subdue Steele. Somehow, they'd managed to avoid injury, and made it to the beach below where they swiped a small boat to follow Keyes. Their chase had taken them to a small port, led to the theft of the bus on which they'd rode to the Hotel del Amor two days prior, and eventually led them to the airstrip… where Steele engaged in a round of chicken with Keyes's, finally forcing the man's plane into the bush. A foot chase ensued, and at last, Steele got his hands on the man who had turned his life upside down. A jab to his face sent Keyes's sprawling, only moments before the police arrived to apprehend Steele. The poor timing of the local gendarme had nearly allowed Keyes to make an escape.

Nearly.

A well-placed bullet by one of the Malvados ended Keyes reign of tyranny with his demise, while allowing Steele to, at last, prove his innocence.

The remainder of the morning and much of the afternoon was consumed by a familiar routine: answering endless rounds of questions for the police. Then, of course, the question of the damage done to the jail during Steele's escape had been raised. The captain insisted either the Agency assume financial responsibility for the damages or else Steele would be charged with anything the captain could think of levying against him. Laura had interceded in that icy calm way of hers, and smoothly suggested a lawsuit for the false arrest of the nationally known detective, Remington Steele, would likely not only be well-received by the courts, but would likely result in a substantial settlement. After, of course, the captain's name was splashed across the media far and wide as being overzealous in his arrest of an innocent man… one forced to prove his own innocence at that.

Suddenly, for some reason, the captain had magnanimously decided that the jail has been due for some repairs and it would be a simple feat to just have the wall repaired at that time. After a round of handshakes, Laura and Steele finally departed the station, exhausted but elated this this most recent attack on them had come to a resolution.

With the case resolved and Steele free from suspicion, it occurred to both of them that the easy camaraderie of their partnership combined with the adrenaline rush of the chase had allowed them, for the first time in days, simply to enjoy being with one another. The friendship that had sustained them through years of ups and downs clearly remained strong, despite their worries otherwise. Yet, the day had also emphasized how wide the chasm between them, on a personal level, had grown. They walked in silence back to the hotel, both of them lost in their own thoughts. Both wanting to find a way past all that happened, both admitting to themselves that they had no idea how.

They returned to the hotel where they enticed Mildred to join them for an early dinner, despite her numerous attempts to beg off so they could spend some alone time together. Much to Steele's chagrin, Roselli had popped up in the restaurant, in that way of his, and had quickly received an invitation by Laura to join them for the meal. Thankfully, much of the meal was dominated by Mildred regaling them with a blow-by-blow account of how she'd managed, single-handedly, to detain Scribner at the airport. She'd delighted in telling them about the fit Scribner had thrown when the police arrived to arrest her on a bevy of charges, including fraud and obstruction of justice.

It had been a relief when the meal had ended, and they'd departed Roselli's company for a final time. Sleep deprived and adrenaline long-gone, it had taken remarkable constraint on Steele's part to shake Roselli's hand and not plant a fist in the man's face after Roselli had bussed Laura on the cheek while ignoring her proffered hand. Despite his acknowledgment to himself the night before that he was unable to walk away even after the wounds she'd inflicted this round, he was still stubbornly adamant that he would not allow Laura to know that he was being driven nearly insane with jealousy over the time she'd chosen to spend with the man.

When the trio – Steele, Laura and Mildred – arrived back at the villa, Mildred had hastily bid them a good evening and veered sharply to her left. Both Steele and Laura looked at her askance, neither knowing if they were up to an evening alone together.

"Mildred, where are you going?" Laura called after her.

"Oh, didn't I tell you? I went ahead and got a room for myself for the night. I know you two lovebirds want to be alone." She gave them a lascivious wink, then watched as they both flushed in discomfort. _Oh, no, I'm not playing buffer to the two of you tonight. It's time you two kids work through what you've done to one another._ With a wave of her fingers, she departed, leaving them alone.

Then entered the villa in silence, a silence that grew increasingly awkward as they stood on opposite side of the living room, each avoiding looking at the other. Steele was the first to give in, to find a route of escape.

"I think I'll just take a shower then grab a kip." He told her, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels as he awaited her response.

"I'm tired myself. It's been a long few days. I think I'll just pack, then shower after you're done and get some sleep myself." She fidgeted with her hair as she spoke to him, her relief palpable when he simply nodded in response then turned and walked towards the bedroom.

She sat down hard on the couch behind her, planting her elbows on her knees and dropping her face down into her hands. _We can't keep going like this,_ she acknowledged, _But I'm just too damned tired to deal with it tonight. Maybe tomorrow, on the way home, we can talk. On the plane. Where there are too many people around for our conversation to escalate into a full-blown war._ Nodding to herself, she stood and dragged her aching body to the bedroom where she emptied the contents of drawers and closets into her suitcase, leaving out only the clothes she would wear this evening and tomorrow on the flight home.

When Steele emerged from the bathroom, clean but unshaven, they exchanged places. As the water ran in the bathroom, Steele packed up his own suitcases, making it a point to grab pillow and blanket and exit the room before the shower stopped running. Couch made up, he was ensconced under a blanket playing opossum when Laura walked through the living room. With a single glance, she knew he was not really asleep, but as anxious as he to avoid confrontation on this night she left the matter alone. After fixing herself a glass of water, she retired to the bedroom where she climbed into bed, and let sleep take her away.

* * *

Steele awoke several times throughout the night, the sounds of Laura tossing and turning in the open bedroom nearby rousing him from sleep. Time and again throughout the night he fought the instinct to go to her, to sooth her back into sound sleep. Instead, he'd flipped himself around on the sofa, punching the pillow beneath his head into proper shape, then would force himself back to sleep. A sleep as restless as hers, filled with repeats of the dream he'd had back in LA. The dream in which he lost her over and over again.

* * *

Laura laid staring at the ceiling of the bedroom. It was two in the morning and for nearly six hours she had tried to sleep, but the dreams that invaded would jolt her awake with her heart pounding. Dreams of when he'd left last summer. Dreams of finding him injured in London. Dreams of their fight at the spa, of their time in Vail, of their time spent together over the last year. That each time she'd awakened she'd automatically searched for him to draw him near had not helped, instead it had only emphasized how much she missed being close to him, no matter how much she tried to deny it to herself during her waking hours.

 _We can't keep going on like this. He's hurt and miserable, withdrawing as far into himself as I've ever seen him do. I'm hurt and angry, striking out at him no matter what the cost._

With conscious effort she shoved down the walls she'd erected to protect herself, then pushed aside the anger that she nurtured since their flight to Mexico. If she'd been wearing pajamas with sleeves, she would have rolled them up, in preparation to face what she'd been avoiding since everything had begun. As it was, she did it figuratively, readying herself mentally.

Then she simply let herself feel, as she allowed her mind to bombard her with one memory after the next. No blocking them out, no glossing them over, no rationalizing and analyzing. She remembered each moment as raw as it had been at time.

Steele climbing into the convertible with Clarissa, watching him kiss her. She felt her heart clench in her chest as it had at that moment. Never, once, had she suspected he'd been spending time with anyone but her over the last year. They had come home from London committed to one another. In LA they'd agreed to exclusivity. That he'd appeared to have broken that promise to her had hurt… deeply.

The call from the jewelers during which she'd put all the clues together: the blood test he'd had earlier that morning… the tux that had been delivered by the cleaners… rings… the Little Chapel of Perpetual Happiness. She hadn't wanted to believe it. Couldn't believe it. It didn't make sense in the context of the time they had spent together, their upcoming plans. She'd convinced herself she was missing a clue… that she'd assembled them wrong.

Arriving at the church, watching him stand at the altar with Clarissa, who was dressed in a beautiful wedding gown. Witnessing, with her own eyes, as he exchanged vows with the woman. She felt now the anger, the betrayal… her heart shredding to pieces. The hurt only growing deeper as he'd treated her finding him there as a farce, something to be laughed at, something they would joke about later. That he'd locked her in the closet, to return to the altar to be wed. She gasped now, as she felt the pain of that moment sink in. Felt the threat of tears behind her eyes, tears that would not even come the hurt was almost too deep.

The conversation in the limousine on the way to Unidac when he'd mockingly blamed her, then accepted an apology never offered. The passport. The damned passport on which she'd missed his place of birth. The horror of knowing her blunder had set this all in motion, while he, unaware, had pointed a finger at her. Remembering how her stomach had clenched at realizing the truth in what he'd said, although he'd been unaware. Her attempt to cover her guilt, her feeling of failure, by attacking him instead.

The conversation on the way to the church after Unidac, and on the streets after she'd jumped from the car. The panic and desperation that had him frantic after he'd stopped hiding behind flippancy. The heart wrenching realization that she could really lose him in the matter of a couple of hours, if they didn't act, and act fast. Knowing all the while, if he'd only come to her when he first found out, they may have avoided all of it… or if it had come down to marriage, that there never would have been a hooker involved, because she would have volunteered to keep him there with her. The realization he still didn't trust her enough to come to her. A tear slowly trickled down her face as she remembered.

The wedding. Her - mud covered, hair askew, exhausted, numb. Him - treating the whole matter as a lark. Until, that is, he'd said the words, 'By being the happiest married couple in America' with absolute sincerity, hope lighting his eyes for a moment, then disappearing as he saw that she was numb, bordering on desolate. That moment immediately after, when he returned to his prior behavior, treating it all as though it were just a magnificent game.

It was in remembering his words that she broke. Bone jarring sobs wracked her body. She didn't fight it. She simply let it happen, knowing, somewhere in the recesses of her mind, that until she did, they'd never have a chance to heal.

They'd been happy. And more than anything, she admitted to herself as she allowed her tears to flow, she just wanted that back.

An unfamiliar sound woke him. He lay in the dark listening. When he identified the sounds as emanating from Laura in the room nearby, he felt a vise tighten around his chest. Laura, who never cried. Laura who used anger and sarcasm to hide from hurt. To hear her, to know he was responsible, was more painful than any words she could hurl at him, perhaps even more painful than her ending them. He no longer could deny his instinct to go to her. Standing, he stripped off his shirt as he walked to the bedroom, knowing that she sought comfort, closeness in his bare skin. Without a word he slipped into bed next to her. At the touch of his fingers on her arm, she rolled over, burying her head in his chest, her arms drawn up between them, her sobs deepening. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight against him and simply held her. Her tears soaked his chest as he lay there full of remorse for what he'd done, knowing the only thing he could give her at the moment was his presence. There were no words that could take away the harm he'd done her.

He could only hope his presence would help, because he had nothing left to give. Then feared it would not be enough and this moment was the end.

* * *

Laura sat hunkered in the corner of the couch, legs drawn up in front of her, a cup of coffee clutched between her two hands. She knew she looked like hell after allowing herself to give in as she had, but she didn't particularly care. The man sitting across from her had seen her at her best, seen her at her worse and everything in between. He wasn't faring much better himself, unshaven, his hair sticking up to and fro, anxiety lining his forehead, his eyes. His eyes were not bright red, however, and she would be willing to wager they didn't feel like sandpaper either. But it was what it was. They weren't contestants in a beauty pageant about to be judged, just two very tense adults that had a lot riding on a single conversation.

A conversation that neither one of them appeared to know how to start. Awkwardness reigned in the room, the silence so thick that Steele could hear the ticking of his watch from where it lay on the coffee table. When he finally couldn't take it any longer, he stood and moved to sit next to her. Taking her coffee cup from her, he set it on the table, before taking her hand in this own, patting it several times before he spoke.

"Laura, I never meant to hurt you. Please, if nothing more, believe that. If I could change the decisions I made that brought us here, I would." He blue eyes were bright with the intensity of his regret, his voice gruff with remorse. She closed her eyes and shook her head. Believing that he regretted what he'd done had never been the issue.

"Why won't you _trust_ me? I've been _your partner_ , _your friend_ for going on five years. Your… whatever _this_ is." She flicked her hand at the two of them. "If you don't trust me by now, how can I believe that _you ever will_?" Her voice weary, she reached for her brow, began to worry it with her fingertips.

"I do trust you, Laura." His voice was quiet, trying to soothe. "It was never about trust."

"How can you even say that? Why? Why didn't you come to me?"

"I've told you why." He ran a hand across his face.

"Because you didn't want to lose me… Because you were afraid if you told me, I'd end us again." Frustration painted her words, her voice. She resisted the urge to turn towards flippancy, or worse, to using her words as a weapon to wound.

"Yes." He answered dully, knowing with each answer he was not gaining ground on making her understand, but losing it instead.

"Don't you see? That's what I _mean_! You didn't _trust_ me to stand by you. You didn't _trust_ that I would do whatever we needed to keep you here! You didn't _trust_ me not to end us over something you had no control over!"

"You've ended us for _less_ before, Laura!" His voice rose with his frustration. Dropping her hand, he stood to pace. "Yet I was to _believe_ that when you learned I might be deported, that when you realized the Agency would be put at risk as _your_ mythical 'Remington Steele' would also be deported, that you'd not blame me and end us again?"

"Yes, you were! You hadn't _done_ anything _wrong_."

"I hadn't done anything _the last time_ you ended us either, Laura. One minute we fine, then the next… pfttttt…" he flicked his hand at the air, "…we were done."

"I didn't end us then. I told you we needed time apart to think about what we wanted…"

"That's my point, _Laura_. _I didn't_ need time to think. _I knew_ what I wanted, have known for years. How was I to know _this time_ would be any different?"

"You should have trusted in _us_ , in what _we've been building_ this last year! You should have remembered that I've _never failed_ to come through for you! _Despite_ everything that you'd done, _despite_ you shutting me out _again_ , I came through for you this time as well, didn't I?" At her words, he deflated, sinking into a nearby chair, elbows on his knees, head hanging. His hand ran through the back of his hair.

He held up his hands helplessly, shaking his head. "I'm sorry."

"I know you are. But it's not a question about whether or not I believe you regret what you've done. It's about your _choices_. It's about what you were thinking!" She stood now, began to pace, turned on her heel and looked at him. "Were you even thinking? I mean, How? How could you even begin to think that we would survive you marrying another woman? How?!"

He looked at her in misery, started to speak, then simply held up his hands while shaking his head, before dropping his elbows back on his knees, bowed his head again, laying a hand across the back of it. Laura walked to the sofa, slumped down into the corner of it. Laying her head against the back of the sofa, she threw an arm over her eyes. Silence stretched long between them again, before she spoke.

"And the gymnast?"

"What about her?" He turned his head, looked at her questioningly, tried to ferret out clues by reading her and in the end had to guess. "A professional. Willing to do the…." he floundered for a moment "…job… for a price." He watched as she gave a short, soundless laugh, sat there shaking the head that remained covered by her arm.

Laura lifted her arm only enough to look at him through hooded eyes. With another shake of her head, she allowed her arm to sink back over her eyes again. He stared at her, while trying to discern what answer she was looking for. A look of stunned disbelief distorted his face, as it occurred to him what she was asking. _Surely not. Not after what we've been to one another, our time spent together this year. She can't be thinking…_ He surged to his feet, turned to look her.

"Are you out of your bloody mind, woman?" His tone was equally offended and angered. "To sit there and believe that she and I… that we've… that I've…" He couldn't even voice the words. He watched as she sighed, dropped her arm and finally looked at him.

"Am I." Her words were not directed as a question but as a statement of demand, her focus on him laser sharp, carefully assessing him for signs that he was being honest… or not.

" _Yes!_ Yes, you are! I've done _all this_ to keep me here with _you_." His hands gesticulated wildly as he spoke, pointing at her to emphasize his point, his voice raised. "If I've not had any…any…any assignations… in the years we've been doing this… this… this…" he swept his hair in frustration "…this dance around each other, why? Why… why would I now when we're this close?" Laura sprung up from the couch, hands on her hips, chin tipped up mutinously.

"This close to what ex…" Her question was cut off when he took two quick strides towards her, his hands clasping her face between them, his lips descending to take possession of hers before she could anticipate his intent. The kiss was hard, deep, born of frustration and an urgency to make her understand. His lips moved a hairs breath away from hers for a moment.

"Damn it, Laura, how often do I have to tell you?" His lips returned to hers, softening, urging her to sink into the kiss. His hopes were dashed when her hands found their way between their bodies and she shoved herself away from him.

"Don't." Her voice was strident, colored by the conflict raging within her. Raising both hands to run through her hair, she strode several steps away from him.

"Why not?" he demanded as he followed, stepped in front of her to face her, keeping her in his proximity, their eyes engaged. He had no doubt that if he backed off now, she would continue to cloak her emotions in the safe armor of anger.

"I can't think when…" He took a step forward, a hand reached behind her neck, his head descended towards her again. He changed tactics again, now simply brushing his lips lightly over hers, time and again, felt the slight quake that passed through Laura's body at the contact. Across the last year, he'd learned that they closer they were physically, the less able she was to put distance between them mentally. Feeling her lips beginning to respond under his, he again altered the kiss, speaking between each touch.

"Don't think." A tug on her lips. "Feel." A whisper of a touch. "What…" his lips settled, briefly, with a little more pressure, then lifted again when he felt her hands lay against his hips as she took a step closer "…do you feel?" A gentle nip now, as her hands slid up his chest. "What..." a flick of a tongue against her lower lip as her hand found their way to the back of his neck "…do you want?" When her mouth opened under his, one hand tangled into her hair as the palm flattened against the back of her head applying gentle pressure, as his other arm tightened around her, drawing her body tight against his. With a hum, he deepened the kiss, their tongues seeking contact, touching, brushing against one another.

He briefly broke off the kiss, looked down at her, caught the amber eyes that reflected her conflict with his blue eyes that lamented a craving for forgiveness, absolution. He drew his hand to her face, a lone finger trailing from cheekbone to chin. On the edge of her vision, Laura saw the faint tremor in the hand touching her, capturing her attention. Taking his hand in hers, she saw, felt, the sleight shake belying the level of his emotions, then without thought stroked her fingers against the back of it as her eyes met his again. The walls that she'd carefully begun to erect against him slipped. She searched his eyes, his face, saw what was contained there, causing her to draw in a shallow, shaky breath as her heart contracted.

"Tell me, Laura." The words were barely a whisper, before he leaned forward, showing her with his lips what he hoped to hear, their touch ranging between a caress of tenderness and the fuller contact of want. "Please." The plea was made on ragged breath, a soft sigh against her lips.

Hearing the combined hope and fear in his voice, she broke off the kiss. She tilted her head back to look at him again. Her fingers touched the lines that had deepened near his eyes then flitted over his jaw that was held tight, a testament to the toll the last several days had taken on him. She moved her hand to his chest, felt the elevated beat of his heart as it hammered against his ribs, as she searched eyes filled with remorse. Her hand found the back of his neck, threading through the hair there, instinctively trying to soothe his frazzled nerves, to provide comfort.

Her eyes never left his face, as her analytical brain began listing all the reasons that they would not work. The shuddering breath he released as he waited for her answer made thought impossible. Instead her mind was besieged by memories of their time spent together across the years, intertwined with remembrance of how it felt not to have him with her for four, long, torturous months the summer before. Every reason her brain could manufacture now began with two words, that she realized did not come from her brain at all, but her heart.

 _I can't. I can't pull away from him now, not after four years of us trying to get this close. I can't deny this, us, doesn't matter. I can't pretend any longer that I don't need him as much as he needs me. I can't go back._

He knew the moment she made up her mind, the soft release of air from her lips telling him she'd resolved the battle in her head. Imperceptibly he stiffened, trying to prepare himself for the words he'd been fearing she'd say since the moment she'd walked into the church and had found him standing at the altar with Clarissa.

"What we had." She watched as his eyes closed and felt the shimmer of relief that flowed through his body at her words. When she spoke them she felt her own inner torment that had been present since she'd first discovered his plans four days earlier simply dissolve. "Us. I want us." The words were said to assure them both. She felt his chest expand as he took in a deep, shuddering breath, then let it out slowly as he held his forehead against hers. They stood that way for several long moments, before he nestled his face between shoulder and neck, as he sought further comfort in her scent, the unique melding of honeysuckle, grass and sunshine that never failed to remind him of her and her alone. His arms tightened further around her.

"Is it going to be this easy, Laura?" Her fingers played in his hair as she considered his words.

"For now it is. I'm exhausted." She lifted his head from her shoulder, looked him over. "And so are you. Let's get some sleep. We have to meet Mildred for breakfast in a few hours."

"Mmmmm." He agreed wordlessly, but laced the fingers of a hand with hers as he followed her towards the bedroom. There, he watched as she slid into bed, before he followed, lying next to her on his back, refusing to make assumptions. Laura settled any lingering uncertainty when she sidled over next to his side, burrowing her head into his shoulder, slinging an arm and leg over him. He exhaled deeply, before wrapping her snuggly in his arms.

"You've no idea how much I've missed this." He murmured, nuzzling his face in her hair, his arm giving her a gentle squeeze.

"I suspect I do." A solitary finger traced abstract patterns in the familiar chest, as she lifted her head to look at him. "I want to go someplace where you're the last thing I see at night, first thing I see in the morning." His heart lurched at her words, then was instilled with a calm he hadn't felt in nearly a week. Fingers brushed her hair over her shoulder then brushed feather light against her cheek.

" _Carmen Jones_. Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, Pearl Bailey, Carlisle Productions, 1954." His eyes held hers, as a smile played upon his lips. "Very good, Laura. The student may one day surpass the teacher." She rolled her eyes at him. He chuckled then grew serious once more. "Are we going to be alright, Laura?" She worried her lip with her teeth, glanced up and away from him while she considered his question.

"Hmmmm. I think we are. We still have a lot to work out, most notably…" she ran her finger down his chest before tapping him on the chin with it "… you learning to trust me and coming to me when you have a problem." She watched as he grimaced, started to speak. She put a finger on his lips to silence him before she continued. "But it seems to me that we have two years to get it right." His brow lifted at that.

"Two years. So you're still willing to go along with this…." He moved his eyes away from hers "… sham marriage."

"It's the only way to keep you in the country, right?" He flinched at the words, nodded his head. "You did what you did to keep your promise to me that you weren't going anywhere, right?" His eyes returned to her face, greeting her question with another nod. "Seems to me, then, that this marriage must go on." The corner of his mouth quirked upwards.

"Seems it does, indeed." A finger glided under her chin, tipped it up. His lips glanced over hers for just a moment, before he released her. "And our agreement at the Hotel del Amor?" _In for penny, in for a pound. May as well know the whole of it_ , he thought to himself. He watched as she lifted a brow at him, then move her head to lay back against his chest, rubbing against him until she found that spot between shoulder and chest where she loved to nestle. She yawned deeply, as her fingers began to flit rhythmically up and down his side.

"Mmmmm. Be careful what you ask for, Mr. Steele," she answered lightly.

"Oh? Why's that?" He closed his eyes, concentrating on the soothing touch of her hands on his ribs. The silence lingered on for several minutes as they both began to relax towards sleep. Only then did she speak, as her hand glided across his waist, up over his abdomen, to his chest, her fingers playing in his hair there.

"When we get home tomorrow, Mr. Steele… Remington?" His eyes opened at her use of his first name, and he quickly planted a kiss on the top of her head in response.

"Mmmm hmmm?" He hummed questioningly, not wanting to break the moment.

"May I make a suggestion?" A finger strayed to rub against the nub of his nipple, her mouth lifting in a self-satisfied smile as she felt it harden under her touch, saw the goosebumps run down his arms.

"Certainly." He caught her hand in his before it could wander further, then laced their fingers together. It had been too long since they'd last imbibed in one another and her meanderings had turned his body into a blazing inferno of need. He felt her lips lift against his shoulder in a smug smile when he corralled her from further explorations. Laura pulled her hand firmly from his, then pushed herself up on an elbow to look down at him. Steele watched her, eyes lit with curiosity.

"We go directly to your apartment from the airport, instruct the doorman to allow no one up, disconnect the phone and I spend the rest of the day having my way with you." Her voice was husky as she spoke, her gaze direct, and to make certain he in no way misinterpreted her meaning, her hand reached down and ran up the length of his now twitching erection. Feeling his response to her touch, watching his eyes darken to nearly indigo with desire, she smiled down at him with a look of pure feminine satisfaction.

 _Ah, bold Miss Holt. So we meet again._ His mind fairly hummed at all the possibilities tomorrow could hold. Yet, he knew a challenge when he heard one, so he lifted a single eyebrow, his face showing amusement.

"Expect to have me at your mercy then, eh?" She bit her bottom lip at the image, while looking at him from under her lashes before speaking.

"At least a couple of times." She watched as his brow raised even higher at confirmation of her plan. She laughed, when he flipped them over so that she lay on her back, he partially atop of her.

"Is that so?" A hand slid between the hem of her top and the waistline of her pajama bottoms, found bare skin, then skimmed across her abdomen until seeking fingers found the nipple of a breast and began to flick, rub, tease. As she arched into his hand, his mouth found the sensitive spot at the crook of her neck, where teeth nipped, a tongue tasted, a mouth suckled.

"Yes." The word was whispered on a shaky exhale, as sparks flew across her body.

"And if I wish to have _you_ at _my_ mercy instead?" He shifted, his mouth running over a cloth covered breast, then finding the puckered point of her nipple, drew it firmly into his mouth. He watched with a grin as her hips lifted from the bed.

"We'll see who comes out on top." The words were said on a gasp and a moan. A moan that only elongated as he released her nipple from his mouth and raised a brow with amusement at her little quip. Arms beneath her shoulders, he rolled them back over. Laura settled back against him, her hand finding his side, absently rubbing it. "What are we going to tell Mildred? I'm sure she'll be expecting us to get right down to business."

"I'll simply tell her we've a pressing engagement." Laura smacked at his shoulder and laughed.

"You _would_ too."

"Mmmmm." He acknowledged. "Let's get some sleep, Laura. I don't think I've gotten more than five winks this last week." He fingered the ends of her hair lazily, the motion of her hand shortly lulling him to sleep, she, on a short sigh, following shortly behind him.

* * *

Mildred took one discerning look at the young couple over breakfast and nodded to her head to herself. It was clear they had come to some sort of resolution the evening before, when finally left to their own devices. She determined then and there that come hell or high water she'd make sure their tickets home were upgraded to first class so that they could have the privacy to continue nurturing the healing that had begun. That her kids were anxious to get home was clear, as they rushed through breakfast, eager to be at the airport on time. It was clear neither of them were willing to take a chance anything could go wrong with the travel plans this time around.

The only blight over the contentment of the morning was the arrival of Roselli, as they waited for a taxi to pick them up in front of the hotel. He'd managed to commandeer the hotel van, and volunteered to see them off at the airport. Steele found himself immediately on edge at the intrusion, yet relaxed when he saw Laura's slight eye roll of annoyance when Roselli had appeared. The trio accepted the offer of a lift for no other reason than the man had, at the end of the day, played a role in Steele's vindication in the murder of Keyes. Steele was unable, however, to tamp down his proprietary behavior towards Laura, amusing the archaeologist once more. It was only once he and Laura were ensconced in the relative privacy of their first class seats on the plane that he fully relaxed.

As they waited for the plane to take off, the tips of his fingers ran across the top of Laura's hand, drawing a smile from her. As the plane began its approach, she turned her hand over and laced her fingers with his own. By the time the seatbelt light disengaged, they'd moved as close to one another as possible, given the mounted seat tray and armrests between them.

"Ready to be home?" he asked Laura quietly, while giving their still joined hands a gentle squeeze. Laura lifted sultry amber eyes to his face, causing him to simultaneously catch his breath and grin softly as her thoughts reminded him, not that he needed to be reminded, of their private plans for the day ahead. "Why, Mrs. Steele, I believe your thoughts are positively libidinous," he drawled, as he skimmed a single finger along her jawline.

"While yours are absolutely orgiastic, Mr. Steele." She leaned towards him in a gentle hint, a hint he was only too willing to take her up on. His lips brushed over hers, before settling firmly overtop them as a hand moved to stroke her neck. A nibble on a lip, and a flick of a tongue threatened to take the kiss to a nearly indecent level given they were currently in mixed company. Neither particularly cared. The untimely arrival of the stewardess left both heaving a quiet sigh of annoyance at the intrusion. Quick to shake it, Steele mustered up his customary charm and ordered champagne for the both of them. They satisfied themselves with a few more kisses, less tempestuous than the last, until the champagne arrived. Once their glasses were filled they returned their attentions to one another.

"Looks like it's smooth sailing from here on in," Laura told him contentedly, smiling as he lifted his glass in their customary toast.

"Here's to finishing in Los Angeles what we started in Mexico," he offered, watching as Laura's smile widened. After a tap of the flutes, they wrapped their arms around each other in their traditional lover's toast, only to find their arms hopelessly entangled. "Let's try this again, shall we?" He suggested as they switched hands, only to find the glasses clinked together making it impossible for both of them to imbibe at the same time. With a gentle nudge against the stem of Laura's glass after she'd had a sip, he took a sip of his champagne as she laughed with mirth next to him. Captivated by her, he leaned over and pressed his lips against her temple, feeling fully relaxed for the first time in a week when she automatically leaned into his lips as she would have before the business with the INS had begun.

Both knew they still had things to work through, yet were optimistic that with Mexico fading into the distance behind them, that they could take on whatever challenges might lay ahead.

Little did they know what awaited them next.


End file.
